The Outliers

by Kimberly McCreight

  But nothing happens. There is only the pounding of my heart and all that blood rushing to my head.

  “Why doesn’t everyone take a breath and sit down,” Quentin says, not far behind me now. “Especially before the others come back and things get even more complicated.”

  His voice sounds totally different, more in control. Older. Or is that just in my head? Slowly, I drop my hand from the knob. What choice do I have? When I do, Doug lowers his arm and backs away.

  When I finally turn, Quentin looks different, too. The sweet, nerdy boy is gone. And there is this grown man in his place. This man who seems much taller and stronger. Like he has never doubted himself in his entire life. Who the hell is he?

  Quentin takes off his apparently unnecessary glasses and lays them on the table. “Doug, maybe you’d like to start by saying something to Wylie.”

  Doug glares at me for a minute. “I’m sorry,” he says finally, crossing his arms. Like a child who is not sorry at all. “Lexi and I.” He points to the back of the room, like she is back there somewhere. “We were just trying to get you here safely. Like Quentin asked.”

  “He doesn’t work for North Point?” I ask Quentin, because there is no way I’m talking to Doug.

  “No, no. North Point is a legitimate threat that we need to contend with, but Lexi and Doug work for me,” Quentin says, and with this look like this should be a huge relief to me. “I hired them to ensure you arrived safely.” He shoots a look at Doug. “It was certainly not my intent that you be frightened. That was unfortunate and unacceptable. But in Doug’s defense, it’s not as though he’s had a lot of experience doing this sort of thing. Your dad has always underestimated how much people are motivated by money. No offense.” Quentin motions to Doug, who looks like he could easily kill Quentin now. “We paid Officer Kendall, too, though to be completely honest, I’m still not convinced his motivations were purely financial. I always thought there might be something more complex going on where he was concerned.”

  “I want to see Dr. Simons,” I say.

  There is no way he would agree with any of this—trying to kill Jasper? No. I do not believe it. And no matter what Doug says, that is exactly what he was trying to do in that diner.

  Quentin takes a deep breath and rubs his forehead. “Yes, but I need you to hear me out first, Wylie. Can you do that?” He heads over to one of the tables. “Please, have a seat for a second. The more quickly I can elucidate this situation, the more quickly you and Cassie can be reunited.”

  My hands are trembling, my pulse racing. But I make my way over. Because I need for them to at least think I am cooperating. That I am listening. Otherwise, they’ll never let their guard back down.

  I manage to get myself to sit across from Quentin as Doug drifts toward the back of the room, standing guard. He keeps checking over his shoulder to be sure no one is coming. The others must not know about “this situation,” whatever it is. Dr. Simons definitely doesn’t, and neither does my dad. And is my dad still headed this way? Straight into this? Who knows what they will do to him once he gets here?

  “Without question they’re nice people.” Quentin gestures to the back, the others, he means. “Though I did have to take them as I found them. Miriam, for instance, is not exactly predictable.” He sighs. “As a group, they were far too trusting, however. I show up and introduce them to Dr. Simons, who explains how he is your dad’s friend. Three short meetings after that—” He snaps his fingers. “People want someone to follow so desperately. They want to believe. It’s human nature. Look at all it took for you: Harvard. One mention that Adam is a professor there and his sweatshirt. Two independent data points and most people will accept an otherwise unverifiable conclusion.”

  “Adam doesn’t teach at Harvard,” I say.

  Quentin shakes his head. “Adam works the help desk at Best Buy, but he is surprisingly adept with computers.”

  He’s right. I just took Quentin’s word for everything. I never even asked Adam himself. And once I believed that about Adam, it made me believe everything I heard about everyone.

  “Who are they?” I ask. Because they are not my dad’s friends. That’s obvious now.

  “The ‘spiritual’ part of their group has actually been much less disturbing than I expected. I needed The Collective to give me some kind of meaningful context,” he says. “But it gives you a sense of the groups who will want your father’s research, Wylie. The Collective is harmless, but other groups won’t be. That’s precisely why we need to be prepared.”

  The Collective. The Collective. The Collective. The Spirituality of Science, I can see it now on the green flyer under our door. But I trusted Quentin because of Dr. Simons. He was the one who knew so much about my dad and even me—our trip to California, my anxiety. But already I can feel the ground beneath my feet giving way. Data breach, Level99. Could they have learned all of this from my dad’s emails?

  “That man isn’t Dr. Simons, is he?” I ask. And how would I know for sure? The last time I saw him I was a kid. Even the pictures of him I’ve seen were all from years ago. I believed he was Dr. Simons because of what he knew, not the way he looked. And because my dad told me to trust him.

  Quentin shakes his head. “His name is Frank Brickchurch. Biggest and best paid acting job of an otherwise fairly spotty career. I gave him a lot of information, of course, but he’s had to improvise quite a lot,” he says quietly. When he looks up from the table he frowns, regretfully. “I am sorry for the subterfuge, Wylie. But I needed you to take the time to get to know me. Without getting distracted by whatever preconceived notions you might have.”

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “I am someone who cares deeply about your dad’s research,” he says, looking at me hopefully now. Like he’s glad to get to this part. “I care about your dad as a mentor and a friend. I would have given up everything to see that he was protected, that his research got the recognition it deserves. I did lie about some things, but never that.”

  And the expression on his face is simultaneously so sincere and so terrifying that it lifts the hair on my arms.

  “Who are you?” I ask again. “Where is Cassie?”

  “She’s fine, I promise,” Quentin says. “She’s safe in the cabin, like I said.”

  “And what about my dad?” There’s no way he knows about any of this—not The Collective, not Quentin. “Is he even coming?”

  “Yes, of course,” Quentin says, and he looks pleased to be telling me that. “He should be here very soon, Wylie. And when he does get here, I’m hopeful that he can keep an open mind, too.”

  “He is not going to go along with this.”

  “I believe he will,” Quentin says calmly. “I warned your dad that his data and his email weren’t secure, that there were going to be people who wanted to use his research the wrong way. But he didn’t want to hear about practicalities and implications. He wanted his science to be so pure, but that’s not the world we live in, Wylie. As his research assistant, I felt like it was my job to make him see that. But he fired me before I got the chance.”

  His research assistant. The floor rocks hard to the right. Dr. Caton, that’s who Quentin is. Fanatic. Unstable. Irrational. At one time or another, my dad called him all of those things and more.

  “He fired you,” I say.

  Quentin frowns and nods. “And I was devastated at first. I cared about your father quite a lot on a personal level. My father was not shot buying orange juice for me, but he did die a long time ago. I’ll admit I saw your dad as a kind of surrogate. Like he sees Dr. Simons, I think. I thought he felt similarly attached to me. And he did share personal things, stories about you and Gideon. That’s how I knew he called you Scat when you were little. We were close, your dad and me. Or so I thought. And so I’ll admit I didn’t take it well when it became clear he saw me as an employee.”

  I pull in some air and send it out in a shaky exhale. “I want to see Cassie.”

  “Yes, we’ll br
ing you to her,” Quentin says, but he makes no move to get up. “But there is something else you need to know first, Wylie.”

  And he has this look on his face. Like excitement but harder to identify.

  “The things I told you, about my dad being dead, about my fears and the escalator. Those things were all true—not the details, of course. But I have always been anxious, just like you. That is something we share,” he says. And I feel sick, because he’s right. We did share something. “And now what you and I have struggled with our whole lives can be turned into this incredible gift, Wylie. If your father won’t listen, I’ll prove it with my own research. But study subjects aren’t nearly as easy to come by once you’re no longer associated with a university, any university—something your father has helped ensure.” His jaw clenches, but I watch him shake the anger off. “But none of that will matter if I have your help. You can unlock all of it.”

  Awe. I realize finally. That’s what I see in his eyes. And it is sickening.

  “No,” I whisper, and put my hands over my ears. Like that could ever be enough to stop the train barreling down my way. Like that could keep Quentin from telling me what he wants me to know.

  “There is something else your dad didn’t tell you,” Quentin goes on, pressing his hands flat against the table as he looks me hard in the eye. As though this is the secret. The one I really need to hear. “Cassie isn’t the Outlier, Wylie. You are.”

  Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, goes all the blood to my head. I grip either side of the bench to stay upright.

  “No,” I say again, louder. And I’m shaking my head now. So hard. I can’t stop.

  “It’s hard to believe, I know,” Quentin says, his voice soft, almost sorry. “But your dad was trying to protect you, Wylie. I believe that. He just didn’t realize that it would come at such a cost.”

  My head is still ringing as Doug walks me across the grass toward the cabin we started out in. They moved me when I stopped responding. Before the others could come out from the back and see that something was so totally wrong. Before somebody in The Collective could intervene. As if I ever could have staged a coup now. Not when in my brain there is only one thing: Outlier, Outlier, Outlier.

  But somehow I do walk through the gray morning, across the damp grass. Because they are taking me to Cassie. Or so they say. And I keep trying to focus on that. Getting to her. Getting away. We’re not far from the cabin we started out in, and Doug still hasn’t said anything about me stabbing him. But with his hand clamped so hard on my arm, he doesn’t need to.

  “Hey!” someone calls to us in a loud whisper when we’re halfway across the open lawn.

  Doug squeezes my arm harder, hard enough that I wince. But when we turn, it’s just Lexi, making her way across the grass toward us.

  “Damn it, Lexi,” Doug snaps at her, looking around. We are exposed there, out in the wide open in broad daylight. “Quentin doesn’t want the rest of them to know we’re moving her.”

  “Oh, sorry,” she says to Doug, then notices his hand on me.

  She seems uncomfortable. Actually, more than uncomfortable. Do I “feel” that because I have some special extra sense? I don’t think so. I have only ever felt one thing more than other people: anxious.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay, Wylie,” Lexi says.

  “She stabbed me, remember?” Doug hisses. “You should be worried about me, not her.”

  “She only stabbed you because she panicked. Because she probably knew something wasn’t right.” Lexi glances at me for confirmation. She thinks that it was just me being an Outlier that made me plunge that knife into Doug’s hand. He didn’t tell her about his arm on Jasper’s throat.

  “You sound just like one of them, Lexi,” Doug says. “Pull it together.”

  “They are nice people.” Lexi sounds offended on their behalf. “Besides, Quentin’s not one of them, and he believes in Wylie.”

  “Please, he’s even worse than the rest of them,” Doug huffs. “We came here to do a job, Lexi, remember? To cash a check. Don’t get confused by this garbage.”

  “They were going to take the house when Doug met Quentin at a bar.” Lexi glances over at me, embarrassed. “Took our life savings for us to realize that people don’t actually want energy bars for their dogs. So stupid. We don’t even have a dog.”

  “Do you even have a baby?” I ask.

  Lexi wraps her arms around herself and nods. “Delilah. She’s eight months.” She even smiles a little, relieved maybe not to be proven a liar about everything. But she’s scared, too. Afraid she won’t make it back to her baby. Scared of something else, too. That I can feel. It’s coming off her in waves.

  “She’s with my parents this weekend. She shouldn’t have to deal with our— This isn’t a place for a baby.”

  “She doesn’t actually need to know our life story,” Doug snaps. “Let’s just get this done so we can get out of here with what we’re owed.”

  “We knew that you knew about the baby when Jasper called Cassie by another name—Victoria, that was it.” No matter what Doug says, Lexi can’t keep herself from talking to me. From trying to get me to forgive her. She knows that this isn’t right. Wishes that she wasn’t involved. “But we were afraid you’d take off into the woods and get hurt. That was why Doug went to check on you in the bathroom. And then things got so out of hand.”

  “Out of hand?” Maybe if I push open the gap between Lexi and Doug, Cassie and I can slip out in between them. “Doug was choking Jasper. That’s why I stabbed him.”

  Lexi turns, wide-eyed, to Doug. Almost stops walking. “You told me he attacked you.”

  Doug clamps his fingers tighter around my elbow. But there’s only so much manhandling he can do. It will only prove my point.

  “Lexi, they were trying to run,” Doug says, annoyed. “We needed to make sure that Wylie got here, right? By the way, you said you could convince Wylie to get into the car without Jasper, remember? That was your job.” Doug’s voice is raised, and Lexi won’t look at him. “Then, guess what? There he was in our car. And one of us had to do something. I was just trying to get Wylie to leave with us alone, taking care of things the way I always do.”

  “Right,” Lexi says quietly, staring down at the ground.

  They are not a united front. Do I know that because I’m an Outlier? Is it really possible that’s the explanation for my overactive dread machine of a mind? That it’s the roar of other people’s feelings in my head, and not my own monsters?

  No.

  Yes.

  I don’t know.

  “Welcome back,” Stuart says when we finally reach the cabin. He makes a big show of taking his rifle in one hand and unlocking the door with the other to wave me inside. “They’ll be glad for the company. Been kind of awkward in there, just the two of them.”

  The two of who? And the only person I see is Cassie, leaning up against the wall opposite the door, managing somehow to look pretty in the pale glow from the windows. But her arms are wrapped tight around her frail body like she’s bracing for a blow. I rush at her.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I say, but when I grab up her tiny body, it’s like her clothes are filled mostly with air.

  I am still holding Cassie when I hear the door close and the bolt thud shut.

  “I’m so sorry, Wylie,” she whispers, her voice trembling.

  “None of this is your fault,” I say. It’s Quentin’s, or my dad’s, or maybe even mine. But not hers.

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” Another voice. This one behind me. We are not alone. When I turn, Jasper is sitting in the shadows along the far wall.

  “Jasper!” I feel such a surge of relief. Like we’re as good as saved. But then I see his face in the half-light—bruised and swollen, a cut over his eye. “What happened to you?”

  “Doug,” he says. He motions to his face. “He was more about the fists this time.”

  “Why didn’t they just let you leave?” It’s a terrible sign,
I know. For all of us. “You didn’t even know anything yet.”

  “Because I wasn’t leaving,” he says. “After Cassie told me—” His voice cuts off like he can’t even bring himself to finish the sentence. “I was pissed and I needed some air, but I wasn’t going to leave. In the middle of all this? Anyway, Doug just came out of nowhere. Made up for what he didn’t finish outside that bathroom.”

  “Those assholes,” I whisper. He winces and pulls away when I reach out toward his face.

  “It looks worse than it is,” Jasper says, and totally unconvincingly. “Did you seriously think I would just leave without even saying good-bye?”

  I look over at Cassie. I don’t want to sell her out, but she was the person who told me that. Repeatedly. Maybe she was hoping that Jasper did leave. “I must have—I guess I misunderstood.”

  “Seems like there’s a lot of that going around.” Jasper shoots a vicious look in Cassie’s direction. “Why don’t you tell her, Cassie? Tell Wylie about all the misunderstandings.”

  That does not sound good. It sounds like more than I want to know.

  Cassie closes her eyes and rests her head against the wall, then shakes it back and forth. “If I had known—” Her voice cracks.

  “There was another guy. I was right about that,” Jasper says when Cassie stays silent. “And boy, did she pick a winner.”

  Okay. I do know about the other guy. Maybe none of this will be news to me. But my stomach is already a fist. And that is not because I am some Outlier. It is because I know Cassie. And with Cassie, there is always something worse.

  “What is Jasper talking about?” I ask.

  “I met him the way I said,” she begins. And her voice is so small. “All of that was true. He came into Holy Cow when I was working, and he ordered a chocolate milk shake and sat at the bar and we talked for a while.”

  “This was while she and I were dating, by the way,” Jasper interjects as he pushes himself to his feet and goes to stare out the window. Lit up in the pale-gray light, his face looks even worse. Cassie closes her eyes and hangs her head, but doesn’t argue. “Sorry, continue.” He motions to her, then turns and looks at me. “Wait, it gets so much better.”