The Collide

Riel had reached out to grab her, but she was already gone.

“WAIT, WHO ARE you going with?” Riel asked that last night, as Kelsey raced around her still girlish bedroom—pink walls, boy band posters—getting dressed. It was March, six months since their parents’ deaths. For the first time, Kelsey seemed happy, and not because she was high out of her mind.

“My friend,” Kelsey said, fussing with her amazing head of dark curls. She was beautiful, but in a soft, graceful way. Riel was beautiful, too, but not that way.

“What friend?”

“You know, the one I met at the museum. Grace-Ann.”

“Grace-Ann. Right. Are you sure that’s even her name?”

“Why wouldn’t that be her name?” Kelsey asked with a laugh.

“I don’t know. It sounds made up. Like from Little House on the Prairie or something. Anyway, this Grace-Ann’s party is out in the middle of nowhere?” Riel had a bad feeling about this party. A really bad one. She’d had a bad feeling about this Grace-Ann girl, too, from the first time Kelsey mentioned her. “You live ten minutes from the middle of Boston. Go out there.”

“It’s her party and that’s where she lives. In a group home, by the way. Because she lost her parents, too. They took off, they didn’t die, but same idea.” Kelsey stopped fussing and turned to Riel. Sadness welled up in her, Riel could feel it. “She and I have that in common, and it makes me feel better. Okay? Besides, it sounds fun. The party’s in some old research place. Nothing illegal. Just fun. Nothing sounds fun anymore.”

Grace-Ann was the same girl Kelsey had spent much of the winter with, trolling the nearby university campuses, looking for boys. One time, they’d ended up stumbling into some psych test and using the twenty-buck stipend to buy beer. Riel was glad it hadn’t been Harvard. There was no chance she knew the boys they’d shared those beers with. Still, so many risks. Too many.

“No,” Riel said. “You’re not going.”

“No?” Kelsey laughed.

“No,” Riel repeated, crossing her arms. “I have a bad feeling. You can’t go.”

Kelsey just laughed harder. “Listen, I love you, Rie-Rie,” she said. “But seriously, what are you going to do to stop me?” She came over to hug Riel. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Because that was the truth: Riel was in charge without being in charge. All she could do was stand there at the edge of the road, silently screaming Watch out! as her sister hurtled headlong into oncoming traffic.

THE NEXT MORNING, Kelsey’s bed was empty and unslept in. It wasn’t until Riel had searched the entire house and thought over and over, I could have stopped her, I should have stopped her, I could have stopped her, that she finally looked out the window. And spotted something. On the driveway.

Riel raced out the front door. Heart thumping. Body shaking. Already dialing 911 on the cell phone gripped in her hand. But when she finally reached Kelsey splayed out there, she could see it was far too late for help. Her sister was stiff and blue. Hours dead. Dumped, by Grace-Ann, no doubt, some girl without parents or a face and maybe a made-up name. Some girl Riel couldn’t find to blame.

And so, in the end, Dr. Ben Lang had to do.

ACCORDING TO WYLIE, somebody had written about that psych test in her and Kelsey’s copy of 1984. But that someone hadn’t been Kelsey. She’d had no way of knowing at the time that that test she’d taken had anything to do with the Outliers. It had just been about the boys and the twenty bucks and the beer and that terrible bullshit friend. It must have been that “fake Kelsey” Wylie had met.

Leo stirs finally. Without realizing it, Riel has been squeezing him too hard.

“Close your eyes,” he whispers. Though she is behind him, he knows. “Try to go back to sleep.”

Leo doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He never does. He doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t expect answers. It’s why Riel stays. That, and because she loves Leo. Someday, she might even tell him. But then, she has an unfair advantage. She can already feel Leo loves her.

She stares at Leo’s back. “I’ve already been up for too long.”

“I could make you tea.”

Her dad would have liked Leo and his random cups of tea. Her mom would have approved of his loyalty. I can’t stop thinking about Kelsey. That’s the truth, but Riel doesn’t say that. If she does, she might cry. And once she starts, she’ll never fucking stop. As it is, her grip is slipping.

“There are people following me,” Riel says finally. This isn’t what she was thinking about. But maybe it should be. It’s definitely a good distraction from Kelsey.

“What?” Leo asks, sounding more alarmed than she was prepared for. He pushes himself up in bed and turns to look at her. Riel wishes she hadn’t said anything. “Who’s following you?”

“I don’t know.”

Though she has her suspicions. The agents who had showed up at her grandfather’s house, namely.

“IT’S IMPERATIVE THAT we find Wylie Lang,” Agent Klute declared once Riel had finally returned to the front door of her grandfather’s Cape house. By then, Wylie and Jasper had stroked safely into the darkness.

Klute was super pissed, too. Riel could feel how bad he wanted to slap the smug look off her face. And so she invited him in real sweetly. Just to get under his skin.

“Oh, do come in and look for her yourself,” she said, waving a gracious hand. “She’s not here. And I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Klute didn’t move, though—nothing like someone getting what they want to throw them off.

“Um,” Riel said. “Are you coming in or not?”

“Yeah, we’re coming in,” Klute said finally, waving her to the side and stepping in the door.

“Like I said, Wylie’s not here,” Riel said when Klute and his partner had finally pounded around the upstairs and downstairs. “Her dad, Dr. Lang, went missing in DC. She probably went there to look for him. Maybe she’ll even run into Granddad while she’s there?”

Agent Klute didn’t look Riel’s way, but she felt the split-second tremor when she mentioned Dr. Lang. It was unmistakable. There was a connection between Dr. Lang and her grandfather, no doubt. They might have followed Jasper’s phone, but that wasn’t the only reason these agents were at her grandfather’s house. Not by a long shot.

Hours later, after the agents had thoroughly searched the house and the grounds, once and then again, and they’d asked every possible question in at least three different ways, they finally let Riel and Leo go. Or to be more precise, they kicked them out of Riel’s grandfather’s house.

Agent Klute got into Riel’s face on her way out. “And stay away from Wylie Lang,” he growled. “Stay away from this entire situation.”

“What situation?” Riel asked snidely. Violence. A wave of it from Agent Klute. So strong, it almost took Riel’s breath away. “Maybe if you explain—”

Klute grabbed her arm then and jerked her close, the pain so sharp and unexpected it almost made Riel cry out.

“Stay away. From all of it. Especially Wylie Lang,” Agent Klute repeated through clenched teeth. He pointed at Leo then. “If you don’t, he’ll be the one who pays. I’ll personally make sure of it.”

“WHERE ARE THEY following you?” Leo asks. “What do you mean?”

Riel didn’t mean to freak Leo out. She feels bad now for telling him. “I mean, not all over. There’s not like an army of them or something. But every once in a while when I’m out, I’ll spot someone watching me. Maybe. I haven’t seen that asshole Klute again, luckily. But I think I have seen that white van they were in at my grandfather’s house.”

“But Wylie’s in jail, and you haven’t spoken to her,” Leo says. “How much farther do they want you to stay away?”

Riel shrugs. “Wylie isn’t the whole thing, you know?”

“But you have been staying away from the rest, too, right?” Leo asks.

“I haven’t even been to Level99 since my grandfather’s house. You know that,” Riel says. “I barely leave your room.”

“Good.” Leo lies back down. Exhales like he’s relieved. He isn’t. “They’ll lose interest eventually, right?”

“I hope so,” Riel says. “Because it kind of feels like I’m running out of places to hide.”