I haven’t felt safe since we landed.
I feel even less safe now.
“What happens when we reach your ship?”
“The other three warriors will look at you and Bridget with the hope of convincing you to choose them as a mate.”
“What if I don’t want one of the banished? What if I want a real warrior?”
His shoulders tighten, and his stride falters for a second, but he doesn’t turn and look at me. “When we return home with a woman, our status is returned. We will no longer be banished.”
“But we aren’t like you. We are human.”
“You are alien.” He uses my word, and it rolls awkwardly off his tongue.
If not for the translator stuck in my ear, we’d have no chance of communicating. Eventually they will break, or they will need charging, and I will be stuck, unable to make myself understood.
He’s right.
I am the alien on this world, but it’s the only planet I’ve ever known. The stories about earth and the pictures of sky and mountains seemed impossible to me until we landed. That I had to leave the colony compound to gather samples was a fear I suppressed because everyone else from the security team to the other scientists always saw it as a great adventure and a needed break from routine.
My eyes are hot, and I want to cry again.
My mother would tell me to make the best of the situation. She always said that, but I can’t force a smile. Is she worried about me or is she making the best of it and hoping that I will have an exciting life with the aliens, and that I’ll be able to report back with extraordinary findings?
That’s what she’ll expect.
I’m not sure what to expect.
Sunif glances back at me. His pale hair, worn long and decorated with beads and metal, slides over his shoulder. “It seems we also share a fear.”
“Ugh.” I don’t want to share anything with him, especially not a blanket, fake mate or not. “What?”
“That our tribes will not accept you.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t solidified the fear the way he has. I wish he hadn’t said anything, as now my position is that much more precarious. “Then what happens? Are you really going to take us away from here? From the colony? If I leave, I’ll never see my family again. I have a sister and a brother. My parents…”
My words don’t seem to have any effect on him as he keeps walking, as though he hasn’t heard me.
“Hey!”
He turns. “Whatever I say will not appease you. So what can I do, aside from offering my protection the only way I am able?”
“You could let me go?” I lift my eyebrows and smile hopefully.
“And if I did, what would your people do?” His eyes are large and luminous in the dark. That’s why he doesn’t stumble over every rock and tree root.
I want to tell him they’d welcome me back and that everything would go back to how it had been. But that’s not true. They’d ask me questions and demand answers, but I wouldn’t be trusted. The leaders gave us up because they don’t want us back. We are being used as an example to others. ‘If you run away, the aliens will take you and fuck you.’
I swallow around the lump in my throat.
“You are banished, Mia. The same as me.”
Another thing we have in common. I hate him for pointing it out. And I hate that he has more chance of going home than I do.
“What happens if I never choose a mate? You must have some women who do not care for warriors, or who do not like those in the tribe. What happens to them?”
“We are not isolated. We trade and meet with other tribes all the time and people move. There is no point in someone who wants to work with metal, living in a tribe that fishes and builds boats.”
