Page 30 of Anchor

My stomach twisted and turned.

Please,I wanted to say.Please just tell me where to find him…

I didn’t. It was written all over their faces—all seven of them wanted me to give them a reason to attack. Just one reason, and they wouldn’t hesitate.

And I couldn’t blame them. Who knew what the IDD had done to this place when I was chained to that basement and Madeline sent them to get me? I had no idea under which house I’d been, but it must have been within these walls because these men were pissed, and they had no reason to lie.

Drove everyone away,he said. All that was left from over a hundred people I’d seen here that night wasthem.They were most definitely not going to tell me anything even if they knew where Taland was hiding.

“Of course,” I said, lowering my head. They were aggravated and they had every right to be.

I’d figure out another way to find Taland, no matter how long it took. I was still an agent and Madeline told me to go back—I would. If only to use their tools to find him, I would go back.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I told the man. “I’ll be on my way.”

I turned around to go back to my car and get the hell out of there, but I’d barely stepped outside the doors when one of them called, “Is it true?”

I stopped. I turned.

“Is it true that you were Mud and you won?”

No,I wanted to say—that was my first instinct because I still hadn’t even had the time to come to terms with the fact that I’d turned Mud, let alone everything else that had happened to me since.

But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t lie—what would be the point? “Yes,” I said, and I said it proudly.

Yes, I’d been Mud, and I’d won the game with Taland’s help. I’d beaten over two hundred Iridians and I’dwon.

The men said nothing. They didn’t look impressed in the least, and that was okay. This time, when I turned around to leave, they didn’t stop me.

Chapter 6

Rosabel La Rouge

Chaos.

There were people outside the gates of the IDD, mostly reporters. Both human and Iridian, there must have been at least a hundred reporters there with their cameras and their phones and their recorders.

Even from a distance, I knew they were there for me. Even before I saw the signs of the people to the sides of the wide street, I knew everybody was therefor me.

ROSABEL LA ROUGE IS A FRAUD - said one of the signs with a large red X at the end.

MUD ARE NOT IRIDIAN -said another.

GIVE US THE COLORS BACK, MUD!!!

NO MAGIC NO WINNER - and more.

I could hardly believe my eyes, but two big groups, possibly twenty people each, stood behind the reporters and held up those signs as they looked around and at the Headquarters building.

Every hair on my body stood at attention. For a moment there, I imagined someone seeing me approaching, and all those people jumping in front of my car, oronmy car like they did in movies.

I turned the wheel and drove half onto the sidewalk, but I didn’t care—I went back and all around, to the other side of the Headquarter gates that were mostly used to bring in supplies, and to transport criminals to the Tomb, or to release those who’d done jail time.

“What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell,” I chanted as I drove with my head lowered as far as I could.

It wasmadness. It was absolutely insane to have all these people here, and goddess, if they saw me, it would be end of me. All those cameras and those phones—if these people spotted me, I would be done for.

They didn’t.

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