Page 5 of Invasive Species (Outcasts of Oloria #2)

THREE

ARABELLA

I chew the end of my hair watching Gara trudge back to the lean-to, where they all sleep in a pile like puppies. Talking to him is like pulling teeth, yet always fascinating. He tends to be stone-cold serious, but I reckon he's got a dark sense of humor with some of the statements he makes.

After the epic blow up this afternoon, though, it’s crystal clear he hates me. No doubt, no second-guessing. As my mum would say—no bones about it.

I yank the luckless lock of hair out of my mouth and pace Ellen’s kitchen, brain crackling like fireworks. “What did I do to make him hate me? People tend to have a reaction to me, sure—too flighty, too scattered, too much—but not epic hatred from the word go.”

One thing’s obvious—he’s more used to women than the others. Ilia, the triplets, and the pilot practically fall on their faces like we’re Japanese shogun surveying the rice paddies, but Gara? Gara glares, like he’s accusing us of pretending at something.

I spin in place, nearly overbalancing into Ellen’s tower of letters on the table.

Shit, that was close. I flick the kettle on, pulling out my box of chamomile tea.

Oh, bugger, out of tea. I put the empty box back and open up my phone to get to my shopping app to add that to the list, but then tap Photogram out of habit.

No hearts on my latest post—a gorgeous shot of the lake from my morning swim.

“Well, bum to you too,” I mutter at my nonexistent audience. What was I doing? Something important.

“Oh fuck. The farm,” I blurt. Shit. I can’t even keep myself in order, let alone a farm. “Without Ellen, who’s going to run it?”

But I can’t let her down.

I grab a pen and paper, my brain already sprinting ahead. Sheep. Chickens. They need… stuff. I need to make sure the place doesn’t burn down before Ellen gets back—which she will, even if that planet is a paradise like Gara said.

Paradise, I write, then cross it out. Maybe this would be better on my phone. Ooh, a set of reminders, right. One for each type of animal. Except I have no idea how often they need to get fed.

I open up my phone browser and a notification pings. “A new Planet of the Pirate Prince novel.” Hitting download, I frown at my phone. What was I doing? My ribs tighten like a fist.

I’m going to fuck this up unless I’m careful. And with five aliens running around, it’ll probably be a national security level fuck-up.

Taking a deep breath, I slide into a seat at the table.

It creaks, echoing in the empty kitchen.

First, I have to practice self-care. “That’s what my doctor says,” I tell the quiet house.

“I need to eat and sleep if I’m going to have enough fuel for all this.

But I know how sleep goes when I’m overstimulated—hours of tossing and turning, thoughts circling like vultures.

” It’s been hell the last few days even with Ellen around, as all my ideas for paintings refuse to solidify .

Pulling out my battered e-reader, I open it with shaking fingers. My last, best hope. Reading always pulls me into a different world, somewhere nice and simple with overcomeable challenges. I scroll my library—oh. Yeah. New Planet of the Pirate Prince, right.

But I really should get a handle on the animals first. I squint out at the chicken coops, closed up for the night. Sheep will be okay in their fields, right? I won't have to feed them or whatever until tomorrow. Floss is missing, though she used to sleep outside sometimes.

Maybe she’s cuddling up with Gara.

I put a hand to my warming cheek. His skin scales were cool and dry, not clammy like I expected, and his muscles were soft sometimes and hard when they tensed.

He took a laser blast to the back for me.

I haven't seen any damage at all, thank goodness, he's super strong, but I still feel awful at how he paid for my mistake.

“Animals,” I growl at myself, and then I snap my fingers.

What I need is a cold shower. The cold always helps center me, grounding me in the here and now, connecting me with my body and gagging my head chatter.

I race up to Ellen's aging bathroom, strip off and flip the dial before I can second guess myself. Cold dowses my skin, making me yell, but then icy clarity creeps in to freeze the frenzied pathways of my brain.

Animals need food and shelter. The chickens have their pellet-y things I can scatter, and the sheep have their grass.

But some of them might need extra: it’s February, and March always has pictures of lambs skipping around green fields, so if they’re pregnant, they’re going to drop soon. For that, I’ll definitely need Nicole.

“I can do this,” I tell myself as I shut off the shower. Next, I should text Nicole, get her to tell me what to do with pregnant sheep. But wait. She and Laura would immediately come down here. I can handle this. Well, except the pregnant sheep. I’ll text only Nicole. Good plan.

I pick up my phone and get the notification that the book has finally downloaded from Ellen’s crappy Wi-Fi. I’ll just read a few lines. Just a few, to calm me down.

As I sink into bed, waves rock over me along with the hapless protagonist, cast out to sea by the evil dragon princess.

But I have hope for her, she'll be okay, this is only chapter one, and the pirate prince hasn't turned up yet. He’s a smooth-talking alien in a ship which can travel through space as well as brave the waves, and he can breathe and fuck underwater.

I read on until the pirate prince finally turns up, wearing very little at all.

I snort in agreement. Our aliens only wear trousers, and I have a healthy ogle every now and again using my painter's eye to guess at the forms underneath.

“Tree trunk legs and massive calves, that's for sure, but what is between their legs? Something lizardy to go with their scales? A sucker or two? Ooh, maybe a tentacle; the pirate prince has a cheeky tentacle.” I giggle.

I put the e-reader down. Our aliens can't breathe underwater.

I don't know about the other part, though.

They just walk around topless like it isn't February and fucking freezing, scales turning different colors like mood rings. I look because of course, I’m only human, and they have all that muscle out on display for anyone to see.

“And it’s soft.” I close my eyes as I press the exact spot on my cheeks that touched Gara’s chest, then scroll through the pirate prince ebook. I see lots of references to hard, rough, coarse. Not so much soft.

Probably doesn’t fly well in a bedroom situation.

But I’d bet Ellen’s farm Gara won't let me anywhere near him to find out any more about hard, soft, tentacles or suckers. He looks at me like he’s onto me, and he'll keep me on my toes while we wait for Ellen and Ilia to get back .

I put the book down as the prince snatches the heroine up, all while she’s convinced he hates her. “Yeah, love, it doesn't work like that,” I mutter, cheeks heating. “It would be blindingly obvious he was into you, and even more obvious if he did hate you. I should know, after all.”

Reading’s making me more agitated, not sleepy. And I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, something important. Argh, my stupid brain. If I can't sleep, I’ll do some tidying. Yes, the perfect procrastination, helpful and productive. Excellent.

My bestie tends to pile papers in the kitchen, and more than once those teetering towers have threatened to slide into the sink.

I hop downstairs and get to work, putting them into piles, wincing at bills, final notices, and marketing rubbish.

I wish I could shove the lot in the recycling for her, but those bills come with underlined red text, which means they’re pretty fucking serious.

My stomach does a triple flip. I didn’t know how much Ellen's family was in the hole.

Near the top of the most gravity-defying pile is a set of folders. I flick through them only to determine what they are and a bunch of papers slide out, peppering the floor with Ellen’s business plans.

“Bugger. I’ll never get these in order again,” I gripe, getting to my knees on the cold stone floor.

There’s plenty of numbers and huge blocks of text, but what attracts me are the drawings on some kind of official document.

My bestie made sure to get planning permission from the council a year ago so it wouldn’t block the bank loaning her money.

The drawings are black and white schematics, but there’s also an artistic charcoal rendering she had me do.

I squint at it. Now that I’ve grown as an artist, there are improvements to be made here.

The aliens can just add them onto the barn they’re building, they’re only working on the walls for now, so there’s time for some creative additions .

I want to add some of Ellen’s character, and a lovely big glasshouse visitors could sit in to appreciate the view in any season, and ooh, maybe I’ll bring in some of those soft architectural lines I saw in the alien craft…

I pull out my sketchbook and finally, finally, I lose myself in some work. It probably isn’t what I should be doing, but right now, I’ll take anything.