Page 40 of Anchor

So, I took in a deep breath, and I pretended that I really was in a dream, and I spoke.

I couldn’t tell you where I found the voice, or exactly what I said, but I didn’t really answer any of their questions. I just said what the Council had told me to say in that document they’d sent for me, which basically meant that I lied through my teeth.

I was never Mud. I was born a Redfire, and I was an agent, and I entered the Iris Roe because I wanted to win, and I got permission from my superiors at the IDD to enter, and I completed the challenges the same way as everybody else—with magic.That’s what I said, or at least I was pretty sure that this was it.

And then,whoever started the lie that I was ever Mud should be ashamed of themselves; it’s not true.

And lastly, exactly as it said on those papers,A Mud could never enter the Iris Roe and live to tell the tale.

My goddess, those words really left my mouth. I said them with my own lips and my own voice and the reportersexplodedinto more questions, but a hand closed around my arm and pulled me back—I was done.

I didn’t see anything but those black dots and stars in my vision, and I had no clue where the hell I was going, just that there was no more light in here, no more flashes. No more shouts and no more crowds.

No more lies to tell.

“Keep going. Just keep walking,” said Cassie, and I was forever thankful that she existed. In the worst moments of my life she’d been there, and if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have made it. Not that first time when I was wounded and bleeding, crippled by physical pain, and not now when those lies, my own words, my own truth threatened to suffocate me.

“Lie down—right here. Don’t worry, I won’t let anybody in. Just lie down and close your eyes, Ro. You will be just fine…”

She had taken me back to the locker room, to the bench across from my locker, and she’d bundled up a jacket—probably her own—and put it under my head as a pillow. My eyes were closed and though I felt the tears, they could have been someone else’s. I wasn’t feeling like myself at all right now—just that girl who lied to the world about who she was and what she’d done. I wasn’t me at all.

I slept.

Chapter 8

Rosabel La Rouge

It was over.

No more reporters outside the building. Cassie had already gone home, but I’d stayed well into the afternoon, hoping I’d gather courage to go out there, get back to my cubicle, search for whatever I could find on Taland—or even the alias he’d chosen when he entered the Iris Roe. Maybe he left an address or a phone number or something. Wishful thinking, but it would get me started.

Except the moment I stepped out of the locker room and saw a bunch of workers stopping to look at me, I knew that I wouldn’t have the stomach for it. If somebody came up to me and asked me a single question, I was going to fucking lose it.

So, I ended up turning around and going straight for the garage. When I saw that my bike was still there, I grabbed the keys from the locker and decided to leave Madeline’s car in here for tonight. It would be safe, anyway. I could drive it back to the mansion tomorrow. Right now, I needed to ride my bike.

“You sure you want to go out there? They’re hiding behind cars and trees,” said a guard—Jerry was his name and he also maintained the IDD vehicles together with a bunch of others. I’d never really had an opinion about Jerry before, but now I decided that I liked him. He wasn’t smiling or congratulating me. He didn’t look at me like he thought I was disgusting, either. He didn’t make it awkward at all, just pointed ahead at the road that led to the main gates.

I turned the ignition off and stopped in front of him. “Are you serious?” The reporters were still there?

“Yep,” he said with a shrug, putting his hands in the pockets of his blue uniform. “Might wanna try the back.”

I was most definitely going to try the back. “Thanks, Jerry.”

“Any time, Rora,” he said, and I liked him a bit more.

I drove my bike slowly. I didn’t want to put on my helmet yet because then I’d have to take it off again when I got to the back gates.

But before I got there, I heard the cussing.

There were three bar gates just inside the tall fence at the back of the building—for staff and supplies, transporting prisoners, as well as releasing those who did jail-time. I’d come through the first earlier in the day. There didn’t seem to be any reporters anywhere that I could see, just the road beyond and the guards—and then one in particular who was dragging someone toward the first gate while she kicked and screamed and tried to get him to let go of her.

Herbeinga kid. A little kid thrashing with all her might as the guard cussed and continued to drag her.

Others laughed.

“Hey!” I called before I even realized what I was doing, but I could see just fine. Plenty of lights out here even though the sky was dark, so I wasn’t mistaken. I drove a bit faster until I was close enough so that I saw the face of the girl—yep, just a kid,possibly not even thirteen years old. She was thin, her clothes old, her sneakers almost completely ruined, her brown hair all over the place, but her eyes were alive. Alert. Her cheeks flushed as she breathed heavily—and then she saw me.

She stopped thrashing and screaming at once.

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