The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(72)

“If you can convince her to go, I’ll tag along. I mean, if you want me to.”

“Thanks.” And I do really appreciate the offer. “I think I’ll give her a few minutes to calm down. Then I’ll try talking to her again.” I motion to the small black square Quentin’s been working on. “What is that anyway?”

“A car battery that I’m trying to convert into a portable charging station, in case they kill our half-useless generator.”

“That’s impressive.”

“It would be,” he says with a smile, “if I could actually do it. I had this accident the summer after my dad died. I was laid up for weeks, so I taught myself all this engineering stuff.” Quentin runs a hand over his hair, then rests it on the back of his neck. “Anyway, I forgot that I was only ten, so it’s not like any of it was that complicated. Also, I wasn’t actually very good at it.”

“What kind of accident was it?” I ask. Because, yes, I am especially interested in such things.

Quentin pulls up his pant leg to show me a scar, at least six inches long, running up from his ankle along his calf. “They actually thought I was going to lose my foot. But three surgeries later, it’s as good as new, at least for someone who is completely nonathletic.”

A car accident. Of course, that’s already popped into my head.

“What happened?”

“I, um, well …” He doesn’t want to tell me. That’s obvious. Which just makes me desperate to know. “I had all these phobias when I was a kid, and they got a lot worse after my dad died. Anyway, my grandfather was this super-old-school guy. One day at the mall he decided he was going to ‘cure’ me of my fear of escalators.” Quentin takes a breath and tries to smile a little, like it’s kind of a funny story. But already it’s not. “And I wasn’t going down without a fight. My pants got caught, pulled my leg right in.”

I gasp. Out loud, I can’t help it. The image is so horrifying.

“Yeah, nothing like your worst fear coming true,” he says.

I do a double take when he says it. Déjà vu, for the second time. But this time it was me who said that exact same thing—nothing like your worst fear coming true—in my last session with Dr. Shepard. Because my mom dying was always my greatest fear, and Quentin is right. Your worst fear coming true turns the world a special kind of dark. And I’m pretty sure it stays that way forever.

But standing there in the middle of that broken-down camp, I suddenly feel a tiny bit better. Because for the first time since my mom died, it feels possible that someone might understand me again. Maybe not the way my mom did. And not even Quentin necessarily, not today. But maybe someone, someday.

“So what about you?” Quentin asks. “Any secret childhood talents that are hopefully more real than my ability to build things?”

For a second my mind is a total blank, like I’ve never done an interesting thing in my entire life. “I used to take pictures,” I say finally.

“Used to?” Quentin asks.

“Yeah, well, my mom was a photographer. So …”

“I get it.” Quentin nods, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t make me spell out how picking up a camera has been a total impossibility since she died. “Listen, do you want to go inside and get a drink or something?” He taps the top of the black box in front of him with his pliers. “I could use a break from this.”

“Yes,” I say, and I could too. A break from everything. “That would be great.”





Inside the empty main cabin, Quentin tosses his jacket on one of the tables before heading over to the refrigerator. I drift over to the stacks of papers at the other end: photocopies of different Q&As, Instructions for Testing, Training Protocol. My eyes scan the pages, picking up familiar bits and pieces. Some of it looks like the test my dad gave us, some of it is a little different. My dad definitely never said anything about a training protocol. So maybe Gideon was right, people can be taught after all.

Quentin comes back and stands next to me, holding out a Coke. It’s a relief, cold and solid in my hand. Like a relic of a long-lost civilization. Still, as Quentin and I stare down at the stacks of printouts, I can feel my chest slowly tightening.

“What do you think they’ll do with Cassie if they get her?”

“I don’t know,” Quentin says, keeping his eyes on the table. “Maybe Dr. Sim—”

“Come on, what do you think?” I ask. “You don’t need to be an actual scientist to have an imagination.”

Quentin glances at me, then turns away and shrugs. “They’ll want to learn everything they can,” he says finally. “See if they can figure out how she’s reading people. If it’s not her eyes or her ears, then what is it? They’d probably do functional MRIs, that kind of thing also. They want to learn how to be Outliers themselves, right?”

“Learn?” I ask.

He shrugs. “You can learn to do anything, right? I mean, not everyone is going to be Yo-Yo Ma, but most people could learn to play the cello pretty well if they tried hard enough. Maybe there are a lot more people who have Cassie’s potential, and they just need help accessing it.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say. “Or maybe it’s more like basketball. No matter how much you practice, most people are never going to dunk the ball.”