LITMIR.BIZ

       November 5

       It is critical that we all stand ready when called upon to do what is right . Whatever it might cost each of us personally. Love of the Lord requires sacrifice. That is how we show that we are loyal servants to a higher power.

       If we expect to see the benefits of being devout in our own lives, we must be willing to sacrifice so that we can show we are deserving of all that has been sacrificed for us. And one thing we cannot allow is a world intent on racing to the next scientific discovery at the cost of innocent lives.

       We must be willing to stand up to such forces. We must be willing to fight righteously for the innocent and the weak. Whatever the cost.

       Go in peace, everyone. To the light.

RIEL

      RIEL LIES IN LEO’S NARROW BED. EYES WIDE OPEN IN THE DARK. WITH INSOMNIAC Leo’s super-shades down, it’s pitch-black in his room, even though it’s nearly eight a.m. As Leo breathes heavily in his sleep, Riel tries to imagine a night sky above filled with stars. Purple-blue blackness and pinpricks of light. Like glitter. Her sister, Kelsey, loved to do shit like that. To look up at the stars. Pretend they were there, even when they weren’t. But all Riel sees is blackness. That’s all she’s ever seen.

      Riel shifts in bed, curls up closer to Leo. Hopes his steady breathing will put her back to sleep. It won’t, though. It never does.

      Once, after their parents died, Kelsey slept outside in the freezing cold just so she could feel “close to them.” To the stars? To their parents? Riel didn’t ask. Kelsey’s explanations always made things worse.

      Kelsey was an old soul, though, a sensitive spirit. An artist, born short a layer of skin. Not just because she was an Outlier, either. Riel’s an Outlier, but she’s always been hard as nails. She’d survive a goddamn nuclear winter, even when she was trying to die.

      Riel had been eighteen and a freshman at Harvard, Kelsey only sixteen, when their parents died last November. Swept away in a flash flood while building temporary housing in Arkansas. Because that was the kind of people they were. Good people. People who died doing the right thing.

      Doing good was what Riel had intended with Level99. And maybe that even was what she was doing before Quentin came along in April, only weeks after Kelsey died. Riel was still shredded by her grief, and Quentin made it sound like Kelsey could still be alive if it wasn’t for one ambitious asshole: Dr. Ben Lang. Dr. Lang cared only about his new discovery—these Outliers—making him rich. And so, Riel had decided the only thing that mattered was making him pay. She could tell Quentin was an ass from the start, of course. An untrustworthy narcissist. But that had mattered less than seeing to it that Dr. Lang got what was coming to him.

      Deep down, she’d also probably known that Kelsey had been doomed from the start, regardless of Dr. Ben Lang. That finding out she was an Outlier wouldn’t have changed a damn thing. Maybe being an Outlier didn’t make things easier, but it wasn’t her whole problem either. Kelsey had started drinking way before their parents died. Riel had heard them talking about getting Kelsey help. But then they were dead. The drugs didn’t start until after their funeral. Pot, then pills. Kelsey flew downhill like she was on a damn toboggan.

      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.

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