Crina’s face emerged from the haze and frowned. “I told you to say something so that I would know where you were since I couldn’t see you.”

“But you didn’t say, 'hey Sally, I’m going to grab your arm and scare the crap out of you',” Sally pointed out.

“Okay, next time I will make sure to tell you that I am going to scare the crap out of you.” Crina smiled a toothy wolf smile.

Sally rolled her eyes. “My inner Jen wants me to call you a smartass.”

“What does your outer Sally want to call me?”

“A bitch,” the word slipped from Sally as easy as butter slips from the hand and Crina laughed out loud.

“Then you’d both be right.” Crina winked at the now blushing Sally, then looked around. Fog surrounded them on all sides and kept them from seeing further than a foot in front of them. There were no other sounds than that of their own breathing.

“Do you think she meant to just leave us free like this?” Sally asked.

“I definitely think she meant to leave us like this, but I think we are anything but free.”

“Elle, give it to me straight, on a scale of one to screwed, how bad is it?” Lilly asked the fae as they stood as far from the ledge of the cliff as they could.

“Considering that there isn’t a cliff in the dark forest, and we are standing on a very obvious cliff, then I’d say we’re pretty screwed,” Elle told her as she stuck her head far enough out to see down. It was a very long way down.

“Well, I’ll be honest, that’s not what I was hoping to hear. But at least you were honest with me.”

“It could be worse,” Elle admitted.

Lilly looked hopeful. “It could?”

Elle nodded. “We could be in the hands of a revenge crazed warlock, hell bent on killing his brother’s mate, and you could be his brother’s mate, oh wait…” she paused and looked at Lilly with a sly smile.

“Ha, ha,” Lilly said dryly.

“You have to make your mind believe that what you’re seeing isn’t real,” Elle said suddenly serious. “That’s how we are going to survive this.”

Lilly nodded, now every bit as sober as the fae. “Okay, it isn’t real, it isn’t real,” she began repeating over and over.

“Lilly?”

“Huh, what?” Lilly asked absently as she continued to repeat her mantra.

“Does it help to tell yourself out loud that it isn’t real?” Elle looked at her quizzically.

Lilly let out a huff of laughter. “Yeah, don’t you know that trick? Tell yourself something enough times and it makes it true.”

“If it gets us off this cliff then I’m all for it.”

Lillyfrowned. “What do you mean if it gets us off here? You know it isn’t real.”

“Yes, but Lorelle is smart, and the only way we are going to get off this cliff alive is for anyone seeing it to believe it to be false.”

“Son of a… Crap!”

“Exactly.”

“Did she seriously just drop us in a cave?” Jen asked as she stood at the mouth of the cave.

“Looks that way,” Cynthia’s words faded off and Jen turned to look at her to see what had caught her attention.

“What is all of that?” Jen asked.

Cynthia began opening the boxes. The first contained blankets, the next water, and the next surgical instruments. There was one box left and it was smaller than the others. Cynthia’s hand hovered over it and something inside her did not want to open it. In fact, it was screaming at her to run the other direction, but there was nowhere to run. Cynthia knew with a certainty that she couldn’t explain that they could not leave. The opening of the cave may look like they could walk away at any second but she knew better. They were stuck in this cave until someone came for them. She just hoped they made it until the right someone came.

She finally lifted the lid on the final box and found a birth announcement. The paper shook in her hand as she held it and her mouth suddenly felt as dry as a barren desert.

“Doc?” Jen’s voice was in the back of her mind, but all she could focus on was that folded piece of paper. She gingerly unfolded it and stared at the print on the inside. She read it several times, hoping that it would change and that the words on it would suddenly be wiped clean.

“The date, Jen, what’s the date?” Cynthia asked.

“Crap I don’t know. If we’re talking dark kingdom of fae then I’m thinking late August or early September, but human realm, it’s like June. Why?”

Cynthia swore under her breath as she read the paper again. Congratulations Jennifer and Decebel, on the birth of your baby girl on this 30th day of August.

“Um, Cynthia what the hell?” Jen said from over her shoulder. She plucked the paper from her hand and stood up, reading it with eyes that were as wide and worried as the doctor’s. “What does this mean?”

Jen looked over at Cynthia only to see that she was holding another piece of paper. “Crap, what does that one say, that he’s throwing me a baby shower?”

Cynthia’s eyes rose slowly from the paper to meet Jens. She shook her head. “No, it…,” she stopped and tried to look away from Jen.

“No,” Jen snapped her fingers, “You look at me when you tell me horrific news; now spit it out.”

“It says that, it…”