The Collide

by Kimberly McCreight

  “We’re not leaving without you,” I say once we have reached him. I work to loosen the knot behind his neck, so at least we can get the gag out and he can speak. Gideon tries to untie his hands. It’s slow going for both of us.

  “Let me try,” Gideon says, turning to help me, once he has gotten our dad’s hands untied. With Gideon and I taking turns, the gag finally falls away.

  “Dad, are you okay?” I ask as soon as he is able to respond.

  “Run. Now,” he breathes, his voice hoarse. “You need to get out of here, right now.”

  “We will,” I say as I start work on his ankles, kneeling on the cold concrete next to him. “But with you.”

  Someone is in there with us, of course. Our dad didn’t just magically appear under that light when he wasn’t there before. I can feel them, too, looming nearby in the darkness. My dad shakes his head sadly, reaching for both Gideon and me. He wraps his arms tight around us. He’s not bothering anymore to tell us to run. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “About all of this. If it wasn’t for my work— I’m so, so sorry.”

  Finally, Gideon has my dad’s ankles free and I want him to jump to his feet. To race toward the door, shouting, Let’s go, guys. Follow me! But he still doesn’t move.

  “Dad, come on.” Gideon tugs his arm. “Let’s go.”

  But our dad still doesn’t move. And he doesn’t tell us to run again. Instead, his eyes focus past us on the darkness, on whoever is there. Waiting.

  He shakes his head a little and frowns, as his eyes shine sadly in the darkness. “It’s too late now. But it’s going to be okay.” By this he means: because we are together, no matter how terrible the end. His voice is quaking, too. You don’t need to be an Outlier to know that he is terrified. “We need to stay calm, no matter what. That’s the most important thing. Trust me, I have been with him for a while now.”

  “Him, who, Dad?” I ask.

  There’s a different sound behind us then—feet on the concrete floor, shuffling. Someone coming toward us. But it’s the rifle that emerges first from the darkness. The muzzle pointed up and to the side, not right at us at least. I close my eyes. Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe.

  I also think: This is the beginning of the end. The EndOfDays is nigh.

  “Why don’t all of you sit down?” A voice.

  A familiar one, but my mind is racing too fast to place it. And the man is still out of view, swallowed by the shadows. Finally, there are more footsteps, and there he is. Long salt-and-pepper hair held back in a messy ponytail, arms sinewy. He has on a faded yellow T-shirt with the outline of a palm tree and some loose-fitting cargo shorts hanging off his hips. He was always a smallish man, but the huge gun makes him look tiny.

  Cassie’s dad, Vince, is EndOfDays?

  It is at once impossible to believe and the only thing that makes sense. I feel a hand on my arm. When I look down, my dad is staring up at me.

  “We’re going to be okay,” he says. “All of us.”

  And when I turn back, I see finally who Vince has his shotgun pointed at.

  Our mom. She’s standing there on the edge of the darkness next to him. Exhausted and so afraid. Terrified. But still alive.

  RIEL

  ALREADY RIEL IS DREADING WHERE THE THREE OF THEM ARE HEADED. BUT THEY have no choice. Or at least Riel has no choice. As she, Leo, and Marly drive on deeper into the darkness, she tries bracing herself. But it doesn’t help. All she can think about is how much she doesn’t want to go back to that warehouse, not now, not ever.

  As it is, she’ll never forget the way Kendall’s voice cut out when he was shot, the way his body fell to the floor. But Riel has no choice. Wylie needs her help. She knows that because of what her grandfather said. She can feel it in her bones.

  RIEL HAD RACED inside as soon as Marly opened the door to her room. “I need your computer, right now.”

  “Leo?” Marly called out when she saw him in her doorway behind Riel. She reached forward to hug him. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “The computer, Marly,” Riel pressed. She and Leo had driven so fast from her house to Marly’s, she was surprised they were in one piece. “Please, right fucking now. They have Wylie somewhere. We need to try to find her. I think my grandfather is going to kill her, and her family. Wipe out everyone who knows anything. And like right now. He’s trying to make it like none of this ever happened. Cleaning house. I think this has been his plan all along.”

  Marly looked ashen as she pointed Riel toward her computer on a side table. “But isn’t it dangerous for us to be online looking for her from here?” Marly asked. “They’ll find you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. They already have,” Riel said as she took a seat in front of the computer. “I’m still here because my grandfather is hoping I’ll change my mind and help him.”

  “Help him what?” Marly asked.

  Riel hooked her fingers in air quotes. “‘Protect the Outliers.’”

  “Seriously?” Marly sounded disgusted.

  Riel shrugged. “Yep.”

  “How are you going to find Wylie?” Leo asked, coming to stand next to Riel.

  “That one picture you gave to her.” Riel took a breath. “Any chance you remember part of the license plate of the car?”

  Leo had told Riel about the one remaining picture as soon as they were safely back in the car. He’d thought he’d put it back in the envelope that night Marly had seen him looking at the photos. It wasn’t until the fire department let him back into his room to get some clothes after the fire that he spotted the picture, found by the firefighter under a soaked carpet.

  Leo stepped forward and pulled out his phone, tapping through screens. When he handed it to Riel, it was open to a photo of a photo of the car, the license plate fully visible. Riel looked up at him, gratitude washing over her. “Come on,” he said. “I have been listening.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed him hard, then turned back to her computer.

  It didn’t take long for Riel to hack into the DMV, to figure out that the car is registered to the federal government. It was a little longer until she tracked that registration directly to the office of Senator David Russo. She wondered if her grandfather had realized yet that the one picture he doesn’t have is the most important one, the one that ties him to the WSRF.

  “Now what?” Marly asked. “How does knowing that car belongs to your grandfather help us find Wylie?”

  “We look for somebody else searching up this license plate,” Riel said. “I’m sure that’s what Wylie has been doing, too. Or having someone do for her. One way or another, this license plate will lead us back to her.”

  Within minutes, Riel had figured out who’d been poking around looking for that license plate: one Detective Evan Oshiro. She had to admire Wylie’s resourcefulness; a cop running a license plate would never raise a red flag, but hacking into the DMV could. But once Riel had Oshiro singled out, all she had to do was follow his trail—Oshiro’s cell phone pings to his home around the same time two brand-new Gmail accounts were created. There were only a couple exchanges between the emails, but they seemed to be directed at Wylie. The last message had an address. The same one Riel followed Kendall to.

  “I have to go,” Riel said, already headed for the door. Marly and Leo were right behind her. She turned back to stop them. “No. No way. I don’t want— This is definitely dangerous. My grandfather is going to try to kill Wylie and her entire family to save himself. He basically told me that. He’ll kill me if he has to. He’ll definitely kill both of you.”

  “All the more reason you need us,” Marly said firmly.

  “Yeah,” Leo said. “And there is no way we are letting you go alone.”

  THEY HADN’T EITHER. And so now the three of them drive on through the twisty darkness. Whatever terrible things lie at the end of this drive, at least Riel won’t have to face them alone.

  WYLIE

  MY MOM RAISES HER HAND TO ME, EYES WIDE AND GLASSY. RAGE. FEAR. LOVE. The
y thunder inside of her.

  But relief, that’s all I feel. “Mom,” I say.

  “Hi,” she whispers, blinking back tears.

  “Sit, please,” Vince says, moving the gun so that it is more obviously pointed at my mom’s head. But he looks strangely pained for being the one with the gun. And he is holding it awkwardly, like he’s surprised to find it in his hands. Which actually might make it more likely he’ll accidentally fire it. “I don’t want things to get uncomfortable.”

  Vince doesn’t seem at all like the guy I remember. It’s like his face has changed. His eyes are completely empty.

  “I think we are way past uncomfortable,” Gideon whispers.

  “Listen to Vince,” my dad says, then looks over at us, eyes wide. “Sit, guys. Now.”

  And I can feel just how afraid my dad is. Not for himself, though. He’d already made his peace. It’s us he’s worried about, and our mom. He’s afraid of Vince accidentally shooting her.

  “How did you even find me?” my dad asks quietly.

  “He sent us a message: the EndOfDays is nigh,” I say. “And then he posted again on that EndOfDays blog. From here. We had someone trace it.” I turn to glare at Vince, even though antagonizing him is kind of the opposite of what my dad just told me to do. “You brought us here.”

  “Something posted to my blog from here?” Vince asks, his face suddenly alive, eyes sharp. Like he’s been woken from a trance. For a moment, he even looks like the old Vince. “That’s not possible. I also didn’t send any email.”

  “Yes, it is. You sent an email.” I’m wrong. I already know. I have no idea how or why exactly. But I am. “And you posted. It’s your blog.”

  “My work on the blog is finished. It’s been finished for several days,” Vince says, still looking like he’s considering. “That is strange.”

  And the worst part is that I know he’s telling the truth. He didn’t bring us here with that email, followed by the perfectly timed EndOfDays post. Which means somebody else did.

  “Maybe,” my mom starts, but that seems to startle Vince, who moves the gun in his hands in a reckless way.

  “Hope, don’t. Don’t talk. Don’t move,” my dad cautions. “Vince is under the impression that my research has been hurting young girls,” my dad says. “Apparently, he met someone at an AA meeting last fall. An architect.”

  “An architect?” I ask, Rachel’s voice calling herself that ringing in my head.

  “Yes, Vince isn’t sure it’s her real name,” he says. “But she told him all about this supposed research of mine. Ever since, Vince has been working to stop it, to stop me—I mean, it isn’t me. But that’s what he thought.”

  “Since last fall?” I ask.

  This hasn’t been about people chasing after my dad’s research, this has been about them wanting to keep my dad off their trail.

  “Yes, from way before what happened with the camp.”

  Rachel. That was her at the AA meeting: the Architect, “redirecting” Vince’s energy. It had to be. That was her building her house. Being the “architect” for Vince, but more important, for Russo. I feel sure of that, though Rachel was smart enough not to say that outright, even now. “There is research into the Outliers that is hurting girls, but it’s at some soldier research facility in Watuck,” I say, looking from my dad to Vince and back again. “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Yes, I’ve told Vince that I would never hurt anyone. That my research was just questions and answers,” my dad says calmly but pointedly. “And your mom and I have been in Karen’s house with Vince for the past couple weeks. We’ve had lots of time to talk. But I don’t think I’ve persuaded Vince. After what happened to Cassie, I guess it’s easy to understand why he might want proof.”

  And now I realize why I had been drawn to Cassie’s house: my dad and mom were there. Rachel must have somehow gotten my mom into the detention facility, then afterward stuck her with Vince. I’ll give credit to Rachel, though—it was seeing my mom, her note, that really made me trust her.

  That and the fact that she had saved my mom’s life. I look over at my mom again, so close to the end of Vince’s gun. But she’s worried about us, not herself.

  “At Karen’s house?” Gideon asks. “We went by there. We talked to that neighbor woman, and she said no one was there.”

  This was why I had sensed something around Mrs. Dominic. She was too interested. All wrong. I’d been right that something had been off, I’d just been wrong about what.

  “Mrs. Dominic never did like Karen,” Vince says with a shrug. “I knew she would keep it quiet that I was staying there while Karen was away.”

  “Let Wylie and Gideon go, Vince,” my mom pleads. It’s impossible not to imagine what might happen if that gun goes off. “Keep Ben and me. They didn’t do anything wrong.”

  My dad looks hard at my mom, shakes his head again. “Vince hasn’t had an easy time since Cassie died,” my dad says. “He feels responsible.”

  “Responsible?” I ask Vince. “You weren’t even there.”

  Cassie. EndOfDays. The Collective. The camp. They are razor-edged puzzle pieces sliding too fast into place. And I am trapped in between.

  “I promised when I was called upon to help these girls that I would stay dedicated, that I would never waver no matter how I was tested,” Vince says. And, wow, does he mean it. He would die for this idea. He would kill for it. It seems possible he already has. “I had promised God that I would do whatever he needed me to do, if he helped me get clean. And it worked. I got sober. I’m still sober. Protecting those girls was what I needed to do to repay my debt. When I lost Cassie, I thought maybe it would break me. But then I realized that for her death to mean something, I needed to finish what I started.”

  “This architect woman who told you about my dad and his research was lying,” I say. “Her name was Rachel. She was at Cassie’s funeral with us.” Vince does not seem surprised by this, but then they’d interacted. Who knows what lie Rachel had made up to explain that. “She was using you for her own reasons. Bad reasons.”

  “And poor Cassie.” Vince’s voice catches on his guilt as he goes on like he hasn’t even heard me. But if he can still feel guilt, that means he can still feel something. It means there is a chance. “She did everything I asked from the very start. She would have done anything to help keep me sober. Even those blog posts she helped me with. I could tell she was torn about betraying you. She couldn’t even be friends with you anymore. But she did it anyway. For me.”

  Cassie posted from Jasper’s house. About my dad. Even looking back now, I can’t think of a single sign. But then memories I have of Cassie are so tinged with grief it’s hard to see them clearly. Or maybe it wasn’t Cassie’s clothes or friends or even her drinking that made me pull away. Maybe it was some deep-down sense I had that she was already betraying me.

  Just like Rachel betrayed my mom. Maybe my mom had felt that coming, too.

  “You’re wrong about everything, Vince,” my mom says quietly, her eyes closed now so she doesn’t have to see the gun, probably. “Don’t you want to finish your mission the right way? To stop the right people?”

  It’s a decent tactic. Logic. One that might even work if Vince was at all listening.

  “We never should have gotten involved with Dr. Quentin Caton, obviously. But when she told me about the research, she also told me who he was, that his own lies would make him easy to convince. I should never have sent Cassie to speak with him.” Vince shakes his head and takes a deep, exasperated breath. “But liars like Dr. Caton have their own agenda. And often it’s not at all what you expect. Like Sophie-Ann. I asked for her help, but she decided there might be a way to profit from Ben’s cell phone instead.”

  “Is that why you killed her?” I ask.

  Vince looks shocked, and from what I can tell it is genuine. “Sophie-Ann is dead?”

  “She was hit by a car.”

  “Oh.” He seems actually sad, and definite
ly surprised. “Well, that is terrible. But I don’t know about that. There is so much, I find, that I cannot explain. Like what happened to Cassie. I know that her death was my fault, no matter exactly what happened or why. But I am hoping when my architect friend gets here to learn—”

  “She’s coming here?” I ask.

  “She told Vince to bring us here and wait for her to arrive,” my dad says.

  “We have to get out,” I say, turning to my mom and dad. “This is a trap.”

  Just then there’s a loud pop and a flash of light outside. All of us turn toward the windows twenty feet away, at the back of the warehouse. Even Vince looks. We are all still watching when, from the darkness, come the flames.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. “They’re burning the building down.”

  When I look back, Vince has lowered the gun as he stares, transfixed by the yellow and orange flames. My mom is inching slowly away. And Vince doesn’t seem to notice. Soon the gun is resting all the way on the ground. He watches the fire, perplexed but chillingly relieved. He is ready for his end to arrive.

  “Come on!” my mom shouts, jerking me up by the arm. My dad and Gideon have already started to run toward the front.

  I wait for Vince to lunge forward, to snap to life and come after us. To try to block our way. But he just sits down on my dad’s chair. He sets the gun all the way down, too. Rests his head back and closes his eyes.

  BY THE TIME my mom and I make it to the front of the warehouse, my dad is already rattling the door.

  “It’s locked!” he shouts. “They locked us in.”

  “Come on, we need to find another way out,” my mom says. She’s trying to be calm, but there’s terror in her voice. “Try the windows.”

  We race from window to window. None will open. My mom grabs a folding chair and smashes it against the glass, but all it does is splinter.