Page 11 of Anchor

On the inside I screamed and thrashed and pulled all my hair out of my skull. On the inside I set the world on fire and watched it all burn to the ground.

On the outside, I said, “Keep going.”

Poppy did.

So many names. So many faces, some of whom I recognized.

And then… “Stop.”

My heart took a long, terrifying pause. The face of the man underKovak, Bengrabbed me and took me back to the Roe, to Night City, to that half-burned building and the guy I’d kissed back. The guy I’d almost killed with Blackfire magic—courtesy of Taland.

Almost,because the word on the last column following his name and age and coven wasParticipant.Not deceased, but participant.

My eyes closed and a new wave of tears hit me. I hadn’t killed him. I hadn’t killed Bed with that kiss. He’d survived.

Poppy was confused, scared, terrified, but when I asked her to keep scrolling, she did so again without a word. Until we reached the letterT.

Tanner, Teague, Thacker, Tompkins, TorresandTyson.Those were all the last names starting withTand there was no Tivoux there. I read and reread the names until my eyes burned—Tivouxwasn’t there.

By then I was shaking, sobbing, a bigger mess than I had been even while hiding in that alley when Vuvu first showed the door of his inn to me. Back then it had been easy—how hadthatbecomeeasynow?!—because I’d known I was going to die, had made my peace with it. There were no secrets, nothing to figure out—just a game and its players who were out to take my life.

But if Taland’s name wasn’t on that list, how the hell would I know what had happened to him? If Taland’s name wasn’t on that list, did that mean that I’d imagined him? That he hadn’t been in the Iris Roe at all?

“Rora, please,” Poppy whispered. “You’re scaring me…”

I imagined I did. The first and last time she saw me crying in years was when she was bathing me that day before the game began—but even then she hadn’t seen my tears because of the water.

“Just keep scrolling. I need to see the list again,” I barely said, my words slurred together, but she understood.

“Let’s just rest for a while, okay? I’ll tell Fiona to bring us food—you need to eat, Rora.”

I appreciated her concern, I really did. But she had no idea what it was like inside my head. Not just the memories of thegame that had actually been real, and for some reason the factshockedme still, but because of how it had ended. Because of what Taland had done. Because of the Drainage.

Because all of it could have been inside my head, and I both prayed that it had because then Taland would be okay and prayed that it hadn’t because then everything we went through, all of it wouldn’t have been real.

So, so torn it was a miracle my body hadn’t come apart yet.

“Just take me through the list one more time,” I said, and I tried to blink fast and wipe my eyes to empty them of tears, but more kept coming. So much more and right now I didn’t know how to stop them. I lacked energy and focus and will.

“Do you…do you want me to read the names for you?” Poppy whispered, and her own eyes were full of tears, too, but she held herself back.

“Please,” I thought I said.

And so she began.

From the top of the list, she read the names of all two hundred and twenty-one players who had entered the Iris Roe.

None of them was Taland.

By then, I had somehow calmed down, had decided thatthinkingwould be my biggest enemy right now, so I stopped altogether. There was no point trying to figure out if it had been real or if it had been inside my head—there was no way for me to tell that for sure. What Icoulddo, though, was look at all the pictures available online and find my proof there.

My eyes were dry and my hands were working, so I grabbed the laptop from Poppy and promised her that I was okay.

She continued to complain, though, so I said, “Actually, I could use some food right now. Mind running to the kitchen to get me something?”

It worked—she was over the moon that I’d agreed to eat. But unfortunately for me, Fiona had meant it when she said she’d beright outside,so Poppy barely opened the door of my room, told her to bring me food, and came back to the bed again. It was fine, though—by then I’d already started to analyze the small pictures of the players, zooming in the page as much as I could without ruining the quality.

“I can help if you tell me what you’re looking for,” Poppy said, staring at the screen with me, but how could I tell her that I was looking for Taland? Chances were she had no idea what he even looked like, so I said nothing. I just continued to go through the pictures until the very last one.

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