The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(37)

“Wait?” Jasper snaps at me. “Are you insane?”

“Can we use your phone?”

“No phone,” the wild man shouts back without slowing down.

“Then your truck, please. Can we borrow it?”

Now he does stop.

“Ha!” he barks, then shakes his head angrily, before starting again for the woods. “My truck. Fuck off.”

“Wylie,” Jasper hisses. “Just let him go.”

But we need the truck, and for some insane reason I feel like there is a chance he’ll give it to us. Maybe because he is crazy and paranoid and it takes one to know one, but it’s still worth a try.

“Listen, my mom is dead and now my best friend—these people have her and they might hurt her. I haven’t left my house in three weeks because I’m so messed up, but I came all this way because my best friend is all I have left. If I lose her, I don’t know what will happen to me.”

The old man stops again. But this time he spins and starts back toward me, fast. Head tilted down like a charging bull. Not the response I had hoped for. Not at all. And the knife is gripped tight in his fist now like he’s getting ready to swing for maximum effect. The only small mercy is that he’s headed toward me and not Jasper. If someone is going to pay for my gamble, it should be me. I press back against the cold truck as he gets closer. Pull my chin in when he shoves his face in close to mine. His breath smells sour, his clothes ripe. This is how it ends? I think as I close my eyes and wait for the pain.

“Hey,” he barks then, right in my face. And when I finally squint open my eyes, I do not see the knife. Just his dirty fingernails cupped around a set of keys. “Now, get the f*ck out of here before I change my mind.”





Jasper drives away from the cabin fast. So fast, down the dark and bumpy dirt road cutting through the woods in front of the cabin that it feels like the old man’s truck might fly apart. After we’ve made it a safe distance from the cabin, Jasper pulls to a stop so hard that I have to brace myself against the dashboard.

“Okay, what the f*ck now?” he asks, like everything so far has been of my design.

“Why are you asking me? How would I know?”

I pull out my phone, hope for a signal, to call who, I’m not sure—my dad, Karen, the police? All of them and none of them feel like options. Definitely, we can’t just keep going anymore. But can we stop? Go home? And what will I even be going home to? What’s going to happen when they find out I stabbed someone? How can I expect anyone to believe that it was necessary, when I’m not even sure?

“I mean, who the hell was he?” Jasper asks.

“Some crazy, sad old guy whose wife or girlfriend or somebody got eaten by a bear.” It’s amazing how ordinary that seems to me. “I bet he was a real jerk even before that happened, though.”

“Not him!” Jasper shouts. “Doug. Who the hell was he? He tried to kill me. You seriously think that has nothing to do with Cassie?”

“We asked them for a ride,” I say, because that’s what I’ve been relying on to keep myself from connecting Doug and Lexi to Cassie. Because that would be the only thing worse than them being random bad luck.

“And so it’s just a coincidence that we’re trying to find Cassie and we run across this guy who tries to choke me for no reason outside the bathroom?”

“No,” I say quietly as my stomach starts to churn. “Probably not a coincidence. There’s somebody who doesn’t want us to find her, but why?” I stare at the side of Jasper’s face as he stares at the bright patch of rocky dirt road in our headlights. “Is there anything else about Cassie you’re not telling me? Something else she was mixed up in?”

“I don’t know.” Jasper turns and looks straight at me. “I swear. She got arrested, that’s the only thing I know about, and that was months ago.” He’s telling the truth, at least it seems like he is. Or I have no way of knowing if he isn’t. “But like I said, I think there was something else going on that she was hiding. Or maybe somebody did kidnap her and they don’t want us to find out where they have her.”

“Kidnap her?” It just sounds ridiculous. “For what? It’s not like her parents are rich or something.”

“Sex slavery.” Jasper shrugs. “They sell girls into prostitution. I heard about it on NPR.” He shoots me a look. “And yeah, I’ve listened to NPR. All Things Considered. And no, not on purpose. One of the cooks at the IHOP is some kind of writer.”

“I guess it could be that,” I say, even though that does not feel at all right. And also, I do not want it to be true. “Listen, we know we have to call somebody, right?” I say, and it makes me feel a tiny bit better just to admit it. To start there and get that out on the table. “The police, Cassie’s mom, somebody. Or we can text Cassie and make her call them. Either way we’re going to need a cell signal. Why don’t we start with that? We drive until we get a signal.”

Jasper stares out at the road for a minute longer, until finally he nods.

“Okay,” he says without looking at me. Like he’s trying to convince himself. He puts his hand on the truck’s long gearshift, tugs it back into drive. “Okay.”

We drive on until the dirt road T’s back into Route 203, the diner and Seneca to our left, home to our right. To the right we know for sure we will have a signal, and soon even. If we go left we’ll be headed onward toward Cassie, but who knows how long we will have to drive in that direction before we have a signal again? Not to mention what other messed-up things might lie in store.