The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(62)

“My mom?”

Here. We. Go. All the alarms in my head sounding at once, so loud I want to cover my ears.

“Wylie, sit back down,” Dr. Simons says. “Everything is going to be fine. But you need to stay calm.”

When did I stand up? Because I did. When I look down, I am standing on the other side of the bench. And now Quentin and Cassie have appeared behind me. Cassie’s only a couple of steps away, arms crossed tight. It looks like she’s lost another five pounds. Like she’s vanishing. Soon she’ll be nothing but vapor, a memory. Just like my mom.

“What happened to my mom?” My voice trembles. Or is that me trembling? My feet are still planted on the ground, but I have started to sway with the pounding of my own heart.

“These people will be held accountable for what they did to her, Wylie,” Dr. Simons says. “Your dad is going to make sure of it.”





What they did to her. What they did to her. What they did to her. It’s a piercing howl in my head. And already I am in motion, trying to outrun it.

Air. I need air. And I need away from these people. Away from those words in my head. Words that no one actually said, but that I already know are true. My mom’s death was not an accident.

A second later, I’m outside in the dark. Racing across the damp grass toward the trees.

“Hey!” Stuart shouts from my left as I pass the cabin where we began. “Where the hell you think you’re going?!”

Stuart. Stuart with his gun. But he won’t stop me, won’t shoot me. I know that now. Because I am my father’s daughter. And no matter how much I hate him right now, these people are his friends. They will protect me. They have to. Protect me from this mess he has created. What they did to her. What he did to her. That’s the truth. Because if what happened to my mom has to do with all of this—with his research—then her dying is actually my dad’s fault.

My feet move so fast they barely touch the ground. So fast it feels like I could fly.

“Hey!” Stuart calls once more, but his voice is just an echo on the wind.

Even if no one stops me, where am I going? I can’t leave Cassie behind, can’t leave Jasper. Nowhere is safe anyway. No place without lies. Not an accident. Not an accident.

But as I finally enter the woods, I can’t think anymore about that. I don’t want to think about anything except the running away, which is the only thing that feels good and right. Not an accident. I think it over and over as my feet pound across the damp leaves, crack across the fallen twigs. But I can still hear my dad’s voice: Tragic things sometimes happen to beautiful people. He actually said that once, sitting on the edge of my bed a couple of weeks after my mom died. Like there was nothing, no one to blame for my mom’s death. Except there was: him and his work.

As I race deeper into the woods, my feet slip and catch, on roots and branches and rocks. Like they did back when Jasper and I were running from Doug. But somehow this feels even worse than that, more hopeless. Because wherever I go, the truth will eventually catch me.

But still I keep on, trying to outrun the thoughts of my mom’s car spinning on that dark patch of ice. Was there even ice? Or was she pushed into that guardrail by another car? Did she see it coming? Was she scared?

I want to fly through the air the way she did. I want to fall and hit my head. Knock the memories away. Knock me into nothing. So that I don’t have to keep replaying every second of it, knowing that she could have been saved.

“That’s ridiculous,” my mom said. She was halfway up the stairs from my dad’s basement lab that last night. “Sticking your head in the sand is not an option this time, Ben.”

It was nine p.m. by then, but only an hour after they had last stopped fighting. After dinner, they had retreated briefly to their separate corners. But now they were back at it. A much faster rebound than usual. Like whatever had been bubbling beneath the surface for weeks was finally hitting a fever pitch.

Gideon and I were together in the kitchen, but like always he wasn’t listening to their fight. While there I stood breathless, gripping one of my mom’s chocolate chip cookies in one hand—the kind she always made first thing when she got home from a work trip—the milk container in the other hand. I was holding my breath, afraid that this time my mom and dad might break so badly that there would be no putting them back together again. There was silence, and then my dad must have said something to my mom. He was too far downstairs for me to hear.

“‘All due caution’?” my mom called down the steps. “Are you even listening to yourself, Ben? Do you hear what you sound like? You’re not a scientist, you’re a robot.” Another long beat of silence. “No, this isn’t that simple, not anymore. And I don’t care if it is your study and you’re the one with all the information. What I think still matters.”

When I heard my mom stomping up the last of the steps, I tipped the milk carton over my glass, trying to look busy. A small puddle of milk splashed into the bottom of my cup, the carton otherwise empty.

“Oh man, that sucks,” Gideon said, appearing next to me at the counter with a full glass of milk in one hand, a cookie in the other. “Looks like someone needs to go buy some more milk.”

“I’ll go,” my mom said, breezing through the kitchen with a totally fake smile. She was furious at my dad now. I could see it in her eyes.