Page 34 of Dark Island: Rescue

"See?" Drova gestured at the man now scrambling to collect his scattered supplies. "That's the third one today."

"Fifth," Phinas corrected, walking toward them with a tablet in hand. "Did you forget the two this morning?"

"That was Jade, not me."

Despite being a pureblooded Kra-ell like Drova, her mother looked a little less alien for some reason, but she still looked different enough for humans to do a double take.

"Right." Phinas nodded. "You had the glasses on. Where are they?"

"In my pocket. I need to return them to Syssi."

"See that you do." He patted her on the back. "I bet they cost a small fortune."

Did they?

Drova pulled the glasses out of her pocket and examined them to see if there was anything special about them. "They don't look expensive to me."

"Look at the logo." Phinas pointed with his stylus. "It's Gucci."

"What's Gucci?" Drova asked. "And why is it expensive?"

Kalugal chuckled. "You are definitely not like other teenage girls."

"Duh." She put the sunglasses back on her nose. "I have better things to do with my time than fill my head with nonsense about fashion."

She filled it with other kinds of nonsense, but that wasn't something she was about to share with Phinas or anyone else.

Phinas leaned over to whisper in her ear, "So, why did you put them back on?"

She shrugged. "Kalugal said they fit my intimidatingchic. I will need it for the human recruits when they arrive."

"How are we doing with the exoskeletons?" Kalugal asked Phinas.

"Not great. They still need a lot of adjustments. When the first batch of recruits arrives, we will have them test the suits and see what needs to be done."

Another worker walked by and openly stared at Drova despite the sunglasses hiding her eyes. She wished it really were her intimidating chic that had such an effect, but it was her height and overly thin frame. She was used to it by now. At six feet two inches, she towered over most of the human workers on the island.

"I wonder what they think when they look at me," she murmured.

"Probably that you're suffering from some rare medical condition," Kalugal said. "Humans have a remarkable capacity for explaining away the impossible, and they are willing to go to great lengths to do that instead of admitting that things don't add up and that aliens might be walking among them."

"Drova! Drova!" Allegra ran ahead of Syssi. "Up!" she demanded.

"Hey, tiny tyrant." Drova caught her and spun her around. "Getting into trouble?" She had the girl on her hip.

"She's having a blast," Syssi said. "I'm having a hard time keeping up with her." She sighed. "I miss Okidu. I wish we had brought him along."

"I'm having some equipment delivered from thevillage," Kalugal said. "If you want, I can fly your butler over."

"I would have taken you up on that if we were staying longer, but we are flying back on Thursday."

"Right." He nodded. "The stuff will get here right as we are ready to leave." Kalugal checked his phone. "If you'll excuse me, I need to make a call to the mainland."

As the others left, Drova pulled out her phone and checked the time. It was just past two in the afternoon, which meant it was nighttime in California. Maybe eleven? Midnight? Time zones were just stupid.

After finding a shaded spot, she sat on the ground, leaned against a tree, and hit Arezoo's contact.

"Drova! I was just thinking about you."