Page 53 of Exiles on Earth

Straightening up from the unconscious triplets, I scan the surrounding hills. My hills, which now have a dangerous rogue robot crawling all over them. “I need to get that thing before it hurts someone.”

“I’ll hunt it down,” Ilia snarls, red racing up his chest and back, shoulders swelling wider.

I hesitate. He might still be hurt from the Landrover accident earlier, but I can’t do this alone.

“It’s on my land, you’ll need a guide.” I give Arabella a quick hug. “Don’t do anything, okay? Call Laura and Nicole.”

Arabella smears the mixture of tears and rainwater across her angry red cheeks. “Why, because I can’t do shit on my own?”

Argh. Arabella always reads into my actions when she’s upset. “I mean someone else to bounce ideas off before you act.”

“Oh, Ms Responsible! I’m not the one charging after a fucking robot with an alien.”

“You didn’t tell me you had suspicions about them,” I hiss.

Arabella’s eyes dart. “I…wanted more evidence.”

She wanted to snoop. Arabella’s curiosity doesn’t have an off switch. Tiredness soaks into me like the rain around us, all the weight of everything today alone enough to snap me. But I can’t break. Not here, not now.

Ilia orders Gara, “Heal them, then we go on the hunt.”

“How long will that take?” Soil squelches under my boots as I square up to him. My soil, my land, now invaded by a murderous robot. “If a walker comes into contact with that thing, what will happen? What will it do to my sheep?”

Ilia’s fists clench. “I don’t know.”

“Hunting it alone is foolish,” Gara cuts in.

“He won’t be alone,” I say firmly. “We’ve beaten one of these things together before.”

Ilia’s eyes widen, his scales reddening and hardening. “Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely yes.”

“It’s not safe!”

I stomp toward the soggy ground, robot tracks etched like a spider dragging a broken leg. “No shit. But it’s on my land.”

“No!” His hands grab my upper arms, lifting me off my feet and spinning me to face him.

Nose to nose with the panting red alien, my stomach flips. His hands tense, muscles bunch, heat thrumming beneath his scaled skin, but there’s no pain—just restrained power.

His eyes flicker between mine, and for the first time, I think I see fear.

He sets me down carefully, bowing his head to avoid my gaze. “I want to protect you. This… is the opposite of that.”

His words and posture could be threatening, but I’ve never feared him. My anger fades at his defeated stance.

I gently lift his chin. “That’s nice, but you need me. I’ll find the damn thing and lead us there. We don’t have time to argue.”

Ilia shudders, rain coursing down his body. God, he’s like some intense special forces ranger, standing out here in the freezing cold shirtless and utterly lickable, desperate to defend me and my property.

He stands up straight as if he’s heard me and wants to look the part, shoulders back and flexing his chest. “I will ensure you don’t come to harm, Ellen. Where’s your shovel?”

Despite the fact I’ll shortly be charging after a gun-toting robot, I grin at him. “That’s the spirit! Let’s go.”

We don’t waste a second, jogging down the track with what we’ve got: Ilia’s diagnostic tool and my spare shovel, grabbed hastily from the fence in the garden. The rain pelts down, soaking through my coat, but I tell myself moving will keep me warm.

A breach in the fence looms ahead, splintered wood like jagged teeth. Ilia steps in front of me without hesitation, fists raised and scales darkening in readiness. He strides into the field, scanning every shadow, every ripple of movement. It’s empty. So is the next.