Elayra could not help but give a disbelieving, snorted laugh at Ghent’s comment of seeing battles and blood. She shifted her eyes to Ghent, making note that he had lowered the gun, but returned her full attention to Miles at the sound of his voice. Her gaze flitted to his finger as it twitched, almost as if it wished it was still placed on the gun.
	The uneasiness she picked up from him made a content feeling settle in her. Now he might at least take [i]one[/i] of them seriously.
	Her eyes narrowed at his answer to her first question. “You know what I mean,” she growled, shifting the tip of the dagger carefully upward toward his chin. “So don’t try my patience.”
	Her brows twitched downward when he gave his answer. “In [i]this[/i] world?” she repeated. She listened as he continued in his irritatingly vague way, searching for any reason to doubt him. But the bitterness and hatred in his response was something she knew all too well. It was not, as far as she could tell, an act to save his skin. Noticing the fight waging in his eyes against his anger at the situation, her grip on the dagger tightened, ready to act in case he snapped.
	[b]“For years, I've been searching... [i]waiting[/i]...trying to find one blasted portal.”[/b]
	She raised her chin slightly. All he wanted was the portal, a rabid dog searching for the bone another had stolen from him.
	[i]He couldn’t be… could he?[/i] She stared at him long and hard until he spoke again. A couple stray beads of water dripped down her face from her still damp bangs, but she did not dare move to wipe them away.
	“Would you rather I had just killed you for what you did,” she began mockingly. Her head turned to follow another car that drove by, and she ducked down, just in case, the blade never moving from its mark, “no questions asked? Because that can still be arranged, if you’d like.”
	The moment the car had gone by, Elayra straightened as well as the horribly cramped car allowed. She tried to suppress the antsy, almost anxious feeling that had begun to sneak its way through her at the confined space. The sooner they could get out of there, the better.
	Again, she cast his hand a glance when it formed a fist. She inhaled through her nose when he confirmed her suspicions.
	A World Jumper. Miles was a Jumper.
	She glanced away, scowling. He was just as much a victim of the Red Sorceress as the denizens of Wonderland, stranded in this world for over a decade, condemned to a descent into madness.
	She took a heated breath. “They closed,” she began stiffly, answering Miles’ single question to her handful, “to protect the other worlds from the Curse [i]she[/i] cast. Wonderland… isn’t what you once knew it to be.” Loathing saturated her voice and glistened in her eyes at the wrong done to Wonderland and its people.
 [i]Her[/i] people, whether she wanted them to be or not. “And if you ever want that to change, want the portals to open again, permanently, we,” she jerked her head toward Ghent, “need to get back before they wear out and close again.” Though she had relieved some of the pressure from the blade as she spoke, she kept it firmly in place. “But apparently, the area is being guarded, thanks to… an [i]incident[/i] last night.”
	She tilted her head slightly, and turned it toward her captive as an idea formed. “Tell you what. You want to know where the portal is. We need to [i]get[/i] to the portal. You help us, and we’ll help you. What do you say?”