“Chaz, you okay?” I hear Gage asking.
“We’re fucking fine. Thank you very much for your concern,” Dice grumbles.
Does he ever shut up?
Chaz’s eyes flick open, and he slowly shakes his head. “I need a fight. I’m just going to keep losing it if I can’t get rid of some of this,” he says, shaking his arms as though he’s trying to get rid of a phantom sensation.
“You could apologize,” Dice demands.
“Sorry,” Chaz says, his lips tensing as he eyes me, his gaze slowly raking down my body before meeting my eyes again. He grimaces and says, “Sorry,” again.
“What happened?” Kimber asks as she runs out on the porch, eyeing me when she sees me completely naked.
I’m fireproof, but my clothes are not. Shit happens.
“The rings aren’t open right now,” Chaz says for some random reason.
I’m having trouble keeping up.
Another slap resounds from behind me, though I’m not sure why this time. There are far too many distractions going on at once. These people need more focus.
“Could someone please get my sister-in-law some clothes before my girlfriend hits me again?”
How do they have so many conversations going at once and still be productive?
Gage tugs his shirt off and tosses it to me. I catch and pull it on quickly, grateful that it drops to mid-thigh on me to cover all the important bits.
He stands in front of Chaz, and he cracks his neck to the side before pulling his hands up in a fighting stance. “Come on. Use me. Get some of the aggression out.”
The dark user would be obliterated right now. Chaz hadn’t even unlocked the dragonite and Lokie powers when he downed that ogre in the fight I witnessed.
“No,” Chaz says, probably thinking the same thing as me. “Too dangerous right now.”
He shakes his head, more frustration welling inside him.
“We’re out and exposed. We know they have a visionary. We need back behind the walls,” Kimber is saying.
That’s why the windows are boarded up. Even against protection, the visionaries can use windows as eyes if they strain hard enough, even though that makes the visions less accurate.
Kimber was supposed to be the last one remaining, and she’s a visionless visionary. Which would make her pointless if not for her gatekeeping abilities.
“I can’t go back in there,” Chaz is telling her as fire flames from his hands.
He curses and snuffs the fire out, still struggling to get himself under control.
“It’s the sun,” I say, reminding them I’m even here. I glare over at Chaz as they all look at me, before adding, “Didn’t you read that book?”
His lips tense. “We’ve been busy. What about the sun?”
Why do I even bother to try and help?
“The sun fuels you. Your red jinn is no longer dominate. It seems like the dragonite has taken center stage. You need a lot of sunlight to feed. The less you get, the more aggressive you’ll become, unless you’ve versed yourself in control. You haven’t had enough time to learn that control.”
“Visionaries can see him outside,” Kimber says in a hushed tone.
“Not if he has the mark to protect him. I can handle that.”
“That mark is painful and unnecessary,” I hear another voice saying.