Page 44 of Anchor

I was suddenly so ashamed. I’d lied to this girl through my teeth, and she knew it. It felt like she could see right through me—sheknewit.

“Go on, then. Get inside.” I put my helmet on and got on my bike, desperate to run away now.

And when I started moving backward to the street, I could hardly bring myself to even look at her, so I didn’t. I just pretended I was busy getting ready to drive away.

Then…

“You’re lying.”

I stopped. I looked at her, then decided it was better to pretend I hadn’t heard anything.

I turned to the street again.

“You know how I know you’re lying?!” It was all I could do not to pull the visor of my helmet down. “Because you put me on your bike. You let me touch you. You’re not disgusted by me. You don’t care that I’m Mud.” Her words fell like rocks in the pit ofmy stomach. “If you hadn’t been Mud, you would have.” My eyes closed and I breathed in deeply. “Everybody always cares.”

I don’t know how I turned on the ignition and drove away, but I hardly remember the trip back to Madeline’s mansion from the white noise that remained in my head.

Chapter 9

Rosabel La Rouge

You’re not disgusted by me.

The words weighed a hundred pounds each and I carried them on my shoulders as I walked through the backdoors of the mansion. Madeline didn’t really know I owned a bike, but there was no way I had the energy to leave it in the little woods at the edge of her estate like usual, so I just brought it to her garage. If she asked, I’d tell her the IDD gave it to me. She’d know it was a lie, but in those moments, I didn’t really care.

In those moments, all I could think about was a fourteen-year-old girl who wanted to win the Iris Roe when she grew up—what an impossible,impossibledream. A dream that was going to get her killed. A dream I’d planted in her head simply by surviving.

I didn’t see Madeline or Poppy while I made my way to the second floor on my tiptoes. Poppy had texted me to let her know when I got home, but I couldn’t bring myself to knock on her door or even text back. She’d want to talk, and I wanted to tell her that I was okay, but I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready foranything at all right now, and as strange as it sounded, I just wanted to lie down and cry and hopefully sleep. Eventually.

It was late anyway. I figured I’d tell her anything she wanted to know tomorrow.

The night was longer than most. I didn’t sleep for a while, but when I did, I rested. No dreams, no nightmares, but the thought of Taland was still there even when I was unconscious, just like always.

But tonight the thought of that girl remained with me through my sleep, too.

Poppy had exhausted me with her questions in the morning, but this time I hadn’t minded. It was a distraction—I didn’t think about much else as I told her about that meeting with Cameron and what the Council had decided and the press conference. She found it awfully exciting, which it wasn’t. Very much anxiety-inducing, the whole thing, but she thought it waswonderful,and she had a whole Notes page on her phone full of ideas about what she wanted to do, she said, to get the public’s attention and to meet and greet my newfans.

“It’s just for a couple hours every other day—not too much,” she said while I looked at her like she’d lost her mind, but she refused to acknowledge it. Instead, she continued with, “Just until you get your five-million dollar check! You’re famous now whether you like it or not, Rora. Might as well own it.”

No, no, thank you very much—no,I did not plan to own anything. I just planned to lay low, stay out of sight until people forgot about me and things went back to normal.

But I nodded and smiled and told Poppy I had to go because my boss wanted me in first thing—they didn’t. I didn’t even have an immediate boss right now. I didn’t belong to any of the teams.Cameron said I’d be appointed soon, but until that happened, all I could do was sit in my cubicle and wait for the day to end.

That was perfectly fine by me because I was going to spend every waking hour searching for Taland.

So, I did.

I searched the files I had access to, then spent over three hours looking at footage from surveillance cameras all around the City of Games the night the Iris Roe ended, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Hoping to find the vehicle he was taken away in, the people who made him disappear so quickly, but I had nothing. Everything surrounding the Iris Roe playground was labelledClassifiedand nobody had access to it except the Council’s personal team, and they had yet to release the bundle of videos for the paying customer. I was sure IDD agents would have access to the bundle, too—I mean,probably—but if we didn’t, I’d pay for it. Hell, I’d pay every penny in my pocket to find Taland or just to get a hint of where he could have gone.

Unfortunately for me, I got nothing. No tips, no mentioning of him or even the Tivoux brothers—nothing at all, which was odd as hell.

Hadn’t they opened a case on them when they thought I got kidnapped, and they found me in that basement at the Blue House?

Howhad my grandmother even found me, and who had she sent to get me? What exactly had the teams done when they found me? Why was the Blue House community now almostempty?

So many questions, and on top of them was Taland. On top of them was Taylor Maddison, the Mud kid who wanted to win the next Iris Roe and get her magic—like me.

I don’t even know why that made me feel so filthy, so unworthy.I’d lied through my teeth, and then she’d looked me in the eye and told me that she knew.Fuck.

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