Page 137 of Anchor

Pulling out a fifty-dollar bill, I handed it to him and proceeded to put the stuff in a plastic bag, keeping my head down and my hoodie on all the while. Taland’s charm wasn’t on me anymore; I didn’t want to risk being recognized. That’s why I’d gotten a pair of cheap, clear plastic glasses, and I put those on, too.

Everything was moving at a strange pace. One second my hand was reaching for the door handle in slow motion, and in the next I was by the car. One second I was filling up the tank, and the next I’d stopped by the edge of the driveway of the gas station, and I was eating and drinking water, forcing myself to chew and swallow because I needed the energy. To think—I neededto think.And I needed to make a plan because there wasa good chance that Taland was…not having a good time right now. There was a chance that he was hurting, he was in pain, he was wounded—there was a chance, and I needed to get to him asap.

I couldn’t do shit on an empty stomach no matter how hard I wished I could.

So, I ate and eventually, things started to move at normal speed again. Eventually, I began to see everything that surrounded me, the road and the trees and the gas station and the convenience store I’d just come out of—all of it had been kind of blurry until now. I began to hear the thoughts in my head, too, and I began to make a plan.

Where I was going was clear—Silver Spring, Maryland, to find the lair of the Devil. The fucking Devil who was supposed to be in prison andnothave a lair out here. The criminal whose people had Taland.

Radock said that’s where I’d find him, but I didn’t have the exact location and I doubted I could search Google for it. That’s why the first thing on my to-do list was to call Cassie in a few hours and ask her to try to find said lair for me as soon as she went to work. It was already three a.m. now, and dawn wasn’t too far away. I’d driven only about an hour from that strip club before I couldn’t make myself drive anymore. Now, I was glad I’d stopped.

My stomach was full and my heartbeat steady and my head clear for once. I couldn’t drive if I didn’t sleep—how could I get to Taland if I died on the road? As much as I hated it, I stayed right there on the driver’s seat, rested my head on the window, and allowed myself to close my eyes.

It would be cold at night, but the car was warm enough right now. When it gottoocold, I’d wake up and be on my way.

I slept seconds in—must have been much more exhausted than I’d cared to admit to myself.

The cold didn’t wake me up in the morning, though. The sun on my face did.

I jumped in my seat and nearly slammed onto the steering wheel, completely disoriented because I could have sworn that I hadjustclosed my eyes and the sky had been dark and my phone had said it was three in the morning.

Now, the sky was blue, the sun shining brightly, and my phone said it was just a little after eight a.m. I wasn’t cold, and strangely my neck wasn’t stiff, and I’d rested. A deep, dreamless sleep—exactly what I’d needed.

No time to be glad, though. I grabbed my phone and turned the ignition on and pulled up Cassie’s phone number—all of this without thinking to look around me, out the windows to my sides. To look at the gas station and the convenience store, the cars driving by on the wide road in front of me, the cars parked behind me—no, I didn’t think to do that at all.

Because I’d eaten and slept, and it was already time to call Cassie. She’d have an address for me by the time I made it back to Maryland.

Then there was a knock on the window on the passenger side.

That I didn’t scream was a miracle. I didn’t jump, either, and even my magic was frozen for a second because it wasthatunexpected. But when my brain functioned again and I recognized the face of the man leaning his shoulder against my car, arms crossed and a grin on his face, I forgot to breathe.

Seth Tivoux was standing there, pointing at the door to tell me to let him in.

My first instinct was to panic—Seth was here, and that meant Kaid and Radock were there, too. They’d followed me. They’d found me because I’d slept in the car at a fucking gas stationin the middle of nowhere, and now it was over. Now they were going to kill me, and I’d never even get to see Taland again.

Except I finally looked around with my heart in my throat and my breath held, and I found that there was nobody there.

A black BMW was parked behind me, and other cars were getting gas at the gas station, but none of those people looked like the Tivoux brothers, and none of them was looking my way. The rear-view mirror and the side mirrors said the same—nobody was around my car except Seth.

“C’mon, Rosabel. Just open up.”

My goddess, he spoke.

“I’ve been out here an hour now—it’s really boring watching someone sleep. Just let me in.”

My brain malfunctioned all over again.

An hour.Seth Tivoux had been here an hour and had watched me sleep.

“For fuck’s sake, woman. Open the damn door! I’m not going to hurt you. If I were, you wouldn’t have woken up in your damn car!”

He wasn’t pissed—no, on the contrary. He was laughing.

Seth was laughing, and I couldn’t even think straight. All I could do was look around us and search for Kaid and Radock again and again, expecting them to jump at me any second.

“They’re not here,” Seth called from outside, then knocked again. “I’m on my own. Open the door and we’ll talk, okay?” I met his eyes through the window. “If you don’t, Iwillopen it and get in anyway. I’m trying really hard to be nice here.”

Nice,he said. The same guy who tortured me in his basement weeks ago, and who would have killed me just last night if I hadn’t knocked him down.

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