The three of us drop, and Gage groans as he rolls over onto his back.
“On second thought, Slade is better equipped to handle her,” he grunts, then disappears.
Chaz curses, looking reluctant to go, but when Ella raises a hand to repeat the psychotic attack, he tosses his arm around me. I feel weightless, nauseated, and dizzy in the next breath.
My breath doesn’t come back normally until we’re suddenly in the middle of the desert with nothing surrounding us. Chaz doesn’t give me time to recover before we’re disappearing into nothingness again, and landing in a green field.
My eyes widen as I look around. There’s no way we went from the desert to a grassy field this quickly.
He straightens and puts his hands on top of his head, staring at the sky. It’s not the Vegas sky. It’s not the desert sky. I’m not even sure if we’re in the same state. But how?
“I forgot my fucking phone in the car, and I need to talk to the others. I should go back for Ella,” he says without turning around. “I don’t think I can even get back right now.” His words are so soft that I don’t think I was meant to hear it.
“Slade will get her out,” I say quietly, grimacing when the burning in my arm reminds me I was hit.
I look down, seeing the burn marks slowly starting to heal. It’ll take at least a day for that to fully mend.
“Why the hell do you trust him so blindly?” Chaz asks louder as he turns to face me.
Ignoring all the aches I feel, I force myself to stand up.
“Because Slade could have left me behind the night you guys freed us. He could have let me suffer when the guards would take turns testing my pain tolerance. Instead, he pissed them off so they’d come after him. He could have ignored me when I was in the cell next to him. Instead, he’s the reason I survived that hell, because if he could endure everything they put him through for centuries, then I could handle whatever they dished out for less than two decades. I was more fortunate than him.”
His look softens, and he releases a harsh breath.
“I grabbed your phone from the car,” I tell him awkwardly as I pull it out of my back pocket.
It’s cracked, but one swipe of his hand has it repaired as he takes it from me.
“If red jinn and Lokies only create illusions, then how’d you do that?” I ask him curiously as he starts texting someone.
“Lokies had a lot more power than illusions,” he states absently. “Red jinn too.”
Right. Lokies created us, after all. Now I just feel stupid for asking that question.
He curses the phone in his hand and slides it back into his pocket.
“Kane is going to kill me,” he says on a sigh. “No signal.”
I pull my phone out to see it has no signal either. Shit.
“You have a way to contact Slade to make sure Ella is okay, right? I mean, as soon as we find signal.”
“He has a phone,” I say cryptically, unsure if he has the power to track him or not.
Not that it matters. They seem to have been able to track us in the past without his phone number.
“When you think he’s clear, call him. Let’s find some signal,” he says. His eyes don’t meet mine as he turns to face me. “We need to walk for a while. I can’t transport anymore without risking hurting you, and we need to find somewhere to lay low until one of the others can come pick us up.”
I look around at the woods in the distance.
“Where are we?”
His eyes dart around. “Hell if I know.”
Chapter 9
CHAZ