Page 49 of Anchor

The neutral expression on my face that camouflaged the panic and the desperation I felt so suddenly was automatic. Ididn’t even need to try when Madeline was around—it was my default setting.

“Hi, Poppy. Grandmother,” I said when I approached them, mentally checking if my hair was out of place, if I had stains on my clothes, or maybe blood on me. But then I remembered that I’d spent the whole day inside Headquarters, so…

“You’re late—I thought your shift ends at five?” said Poppy, and she looked me over as if she, too, was making sure that I was presentable.

“They needed me at Headquarters,” I lied—easy enough to do.

“Senairosis hosting a charity event tonight. Join us,” Poppy said the next second, and I almost threw up all over her.Join us?Was she serious? She knew I was only invited to the most important events by Madeline—like New Year’s. And I was sure Madeline would remind her of that, but to my surprise…

“If you must,” she said.

I heard it with my own ears, saw her lips moving with my own eyes; otherwise, I would have never believed it.

“Come on, I’ll help you get ready,” Poppy said, reaching her hand for me. “You can match my dress—look! Do you like it?” And she showed me the red dress she wore full of shimmer and sparkles, gorgeous on her petite frame, but I couldn’t even say so because I was panicking so badly.

“I-I do, but actually, I, um…I’m tired. And I have work to do. I promised a colleague I’d do some research tonight.” The lies flowed. Poppy flinched. Madeline seemed relieved.

“But—” Poppy started.

“Don’t waste our time then. Best to rest—tomorrow morning, they will be coming to bring your check here to the mansion,” Madeline said and turned around to where a guard was holding the door open for. Her limousine, which she only ever usedon special occasions, was just barely visible from where I was standing.

Fuck. They were coming tomorrow.

They were actually coming tomorrow to give me a check for five million bucks—FUCK!

But, no, I wasn’t going to think about it at all, I decided, simply because I couldn’t afford to stay up all night.

“No fair,” Poppy said, wrinkling her nose—and she was talking about me joining them at the party “You’re lying—just come to a boring party with me for once!”

“Don’t do that—you’ll ruin your makeup,” I said, smiling because tomorrow wasoutof my mind and now I was just relieved that Madeline wasn’t forcing me to join them. “And go, have fun. You know you always do.”

“But I don’t?—”

“Pretty sure there’ll be cute guys there. Cute and rich, just like you like ‘em,” I said with a grin.

She rolled her eyes—slowly—but had no choice but to move for the doors when Madeline called her name.

“One day I’ll be the one watching you leave, Rosabel. You just wait,” she told me, and I bit my tongue before I reminded her that Madeline would rather be caught dead than to go to an event alone with me.

Instead, I just waved until she got in the limo and the driver took them away because I needed to make sure that they were gone. Really gone.

The guard finally closed the door. I breathed again.

Nothing better than to know that Madeline wasnotin the mansion, and she wouldn’t be for at least the next few hours. Nothing better than to feel this kind of mental freedom—not because I did anything out of the ordinary when she wasn’t there, or because I invited people over or snuck to the pool and sauna in the basement—no, I did no such thing. It was justknowing thatshe wasn’t herethat made me feel at ease, even while I was in the kitchen and Fiona set up the table for me to eat, and later while I took a bath, and even when I lay on my bed to sleep. All very ordinary things that I always did—no difference. But that she wasn’t here made the entire experience a hundred times better.

I must have been more exhausted than I’d realized because I slept with my hair still wet.

An hour later, I woke up covered in sweat and breathing heavily while images of dragons and gigantic spiders played in front of my eyes.

“Shit,”I whispered to the empty room, closing my eyes, rubbing them in hopes those images would go away—they didn’t. The nightmare had been too powerful, too vivid. And those things hadn’t been coming after me, no. They’d been chasing Taland, and there was nothing I could do to stop them, to give him more time.

If I hadn’t woken up when I did, they would have caught him—in the nightmare, that is. But the fear, the panic, the desperation had followed me into waking life, so now I was breathing like I’d been running after them for real.

Damn it, where the hell was he?! I checked my phone again to see if he’d texted me with a location or something. I checked my windows, almost expecting a raven with a message around its neck to be there, tapping the glass with its beak.

Then I just sat there and held my breath andwilledhim to just pop out of thin air the way he used to do while we were in the Iris Roe. Just come out from under my bed or something equally absurd, and I actually believed he really might for a moment.

He didn’t.

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