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“Get up, Damon,” Alex says gruffly. “We need to know if you found an exit to the north. None of us found a way out in our sections.”
Groggily, I sit up and rub the sleep from my eyes.
“There wasn’t anything out there but nut trees and a bit of wildlife.” I stand to fetch my clothes from the pile I left them in the day before.
“Then we’re stuck here.” Nahla throws her arms up in defeat. “No one knows where we are or that we’re even still alive. How the hell are we going to get out of here?”
I pull my shirt over my head. “Maybe we missed something. No one sawanythingthat can help us?”
“I saw a small shack in my section,” Oliver says while he pulls up his pants. “There wasn’t much there. Not that I could see anyway. I don’t think anyone has lived in it for a long time. Everything was covered in a layer of dust and cobwebs.”
“We should take a closer look at it,” I suggest. “Whoever stayed there had to have had a way to leave. There could be a trap door or even a magical one. We are talking about the fae after all.”
Alek holds up his hand. “I vote we eat first. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
“Hear, hear!” Nahla seconds as she rubs her stomach with both hands. “If I don’t eat soon, my stomach is going to start chewing on my spine.”
“We can eat on the way,” I say. “There’s an abundance of food to grab as we walk to this cabin Oliver found.”
Nahla instantly starts making a stockpile of fruit using the front of her baggy white shirt as a makeshift bag to hold her bountiful harvest.
“I wonder what everyone thinks happened to us,” Oliver says as we make our way through a grove of orange trees.
“I have no idea.” I pluck one of the oranges off a tree and begin peeling it as we walk, tossing the rind onto the grass. “I know Ivy won’t stop until she finds me though.”
“Why do you sound so certain of that?”
“Because I would never stop looking for her if she’d been abducted by giant bats.”
Oliver laughs. “I know it happened to us, but hearing you say it aloud makes it sound so absurd. At the most, I thought we might run into some cannibals out here in the Barrens, not giant, red-eyed bats of all things. It’ll certainly be a tale to tell my children when I’m old and gray.”
“I think we’re lucky that’s all we’ve seen.”
“Agreed.”
I offer Oliver half my peeled orange and he takes it with a small “thank you” in return.
I look over my shoulder. Nahla and Alek are thirty feet behind us, whispering to each other.
“That can’t be good,” I say, turning my attention back to what’s in front of us.
Oliver chances a glance behind us to see what I’m talking about. “Not good at all,” he agrees. “What do you think they’re planning?”
“Nothing until we find a way to escape this place.”
“I almost feel guilty. Here we are in paradise when the rest of them are stuck on that dusty mountain.”
“Well don’t feel too fortunate,” I warn. “We haven’t found our way out of this pocket of paradise yet. For all we know, we may be stuck here for the rest of our lives.”
“Always the pessimist.” Oliver shakes his head in disappointment. “And here I thought falling in love would change you.”
“It’s not pessimism. It’s realism. You know I’ve never taken things for granted. I work for what I want, and right now, I want to get out of this place.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more, King Damon,” Nahla says.
She and Alek caught up to us without me noticing.
“So, you’re through whispering behind our backs?” I’ve never been one to beat around the bush about things, and when my future is in jeopardy, I’m hardly going to start now.
