Page 165 of Anchor

It was unexpected, and for a moment there, it was almost like he was saying goodbye. That did make me panic. I couldn’t help it—I fucking panicked.

I pushed him against the wall and grabbed his face, and I told him, “Don’t you dare. Tell me that when we’re out of here.” Because if he thought this was the end of us, he was wrong. He had to be.

He attempted to smile, Taland. Looked down at my lips. Raised his hand, rested it over mine for a moment, then slowly reached out his finger to tap me on the nose.

My heart broke.

“You are the colors that paint my world, sweetness.”

More tears sprung out of my eyes. I was barely standing but I still had enough energy to cry.

“Stop talking,” I told Taland. “And tell me everything when we’re out there.”

“We—”

“No,”I said. “Don’t. Speak.”

Putting his arm around my shoulders again, I took us forward, even though the pain that shot up my body through my wounded leg made me wish I could let go.

Never,though. I had my hand around Taland’s wrist and the other arm around his waist, and I was not going to let go until I passed out.

Such a long way outside.

It felt like months and years before we made it into the hallway, before there were windows, broken, that let in a bit of light from the sun that could have been setting already.

Bodies all over the floor—the same people that I’d seen in the house when coming in.

The house that was mostly in ruins, the walls groaning and the floors shaking every now and again, as if to say that they were almost—almostfalling apart completely.

By then, I didn’t think about making it out or going back or if Taland would get a healing spell in time. I didn’t think about anything but the next step. The next hole in the floor, the next piece of concrete we had to move around to get to that door.

That fucking door that must have been moving away from us on purpose.

Eventually, though, we found it. It was broken right through the middle, and two men were lying in front of it on their stomachs. They were breathing, I thought, though I didn’t look too hard. Goddess help me, I walked right over them and took Taland with because there was nowhere to go and we wouldn’t make it if I tried to push them away. I simply didn’t have the energy, so we stepped on their backs and to the other side, and right through the half-broken door.

The air outside was lighter.

Almost,I thought I said, but I couldn’t really hear my own voice.

Almost, Taland, almost…

We were moving—that’s what mattered. And I didn’t think about the fact that there would be a whole neighborhood to get out of before we found the car—like I said, my attention was on the next step, and I blinked my eyes to clear the view of our surroundings, to see where we were headed, to see the fastest way out.

What I saw shocked me all over again.

Holes in the ground like someone had broken it for real. The yard all around the house was cracked in too many places to count, and people, at least five that I saw, were unconscious, spread all over the place like fucking decorations.

What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, I thought, but the daylight had begun to fade as the sun set further behind the horizon, and I needed to get us out before the dark claimed the sky completely.

Taland called my name whenever he could gather energy, and I said his whenever I had enough of mine, but that’s all we said. That’s all wecouldsay, but somehow it was enough.

Halfway to the fence gate, I noticed movement ahead. I noticed a dark figure that was coming toward us, and I panicked. Goddess, I panicked so badly because I knew that this entire place belonged to the Devil, and whoever found us first, they were going to kill us. They were going to ask what we did, how this whole mess happened, and then they’d kill us because neither me nor Taland could lift a finger to stop them.

Please, please, please don’t…

“By the goddess.”

A deep, thick voice, one I recognized.

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