“I’m not hurt,” I say. “But you know Dr. Cornelia from Cornell—he’s got a bunch of us here. They are saying we have something called PANDAS.”

“What?” He’s angry now. Frightened and angry. “Have you where?”

“Boston General Hospital?” The dead-eyed security guard is crossing the room toward me. The fact that I am giving out my location maybe, or how upset I sound—something has made him second-guess his decision.

“Okay,” my dad says, still wound up, but trying hard to pull it together. “And you’re sure you’re not hurt?” I consider telling him about the ambulance, the bridge. But it can wait until he’s here. He’s already worried enough.

“No,” I say. “But I don’t know what’s going on and we’re not allowed to leave. It seems like that Ebola thing.”

The guard is behind me now. His deadness is creeping up my spine. “Wrap it up. You can ask the doctor to use the phone again when he’s back.”

“I’m so sorry that I’m not there, Wylie,” my dad says. “If I had known, I never would have—and I should have known.”

“Hang up the phone,” the guard says. The hairs on my arms lift. It’s like I can feel his hands on my neck. “Now.”

“Dad, what should I do?”

And I mean so many things. Do I cooperate? Do I scream and yell? Do I tell the other girls they are Outliers? It’s now a question I am afraid to ask with the guard standing right there. And if so, what do I tell them? I hear my dad take a breath as my heart pounds. He may not be an Outlier, but he must know that I am choosing my words carefully.

“I’ll be on the next flight back. And I’m going to call Rachel, too. There’s no way this can be legal. I’ll send her right away. Until she gets there, I don’t know what to tell you. Part of me wants to say—”

“Dad, I only have a second—”

“Hang up,” the guard says again. More forcefully this time, and he is even closer now. Maybe close enough for my dad to hear him.

“Wylie,” my dad says, more urgently. “Trust your instincts.”

The line goes dead. The guard has put his finger down over the base of the phone, ending the call. “Like I said, you can call back when the doctor gets here.”