I’m hoping to see Kelsey stretched out on the couch, too. I imagine what I’ll say to her. Everything from: “So, hey, cool book,” to “So you’re an Outlier, too.” It all feels so totally awkward and wrong, especially when there’s a good chance she’s never even heard the word “Outlier.”

But when I finally enter the common room, I am startled by the utter silence and the almost dark. There is no Dr. Haddox, no Kelsey stretched out on the couch. There is no one anywhere. The common room is empty. Not pitch-black, but the overhead lights are off. When I turn toward the windows, it is night outside.

It couldn’t have been much past three or four in the afternoon when Kendall walked in. I was knocked out much longer than I realized, hours even. Who knows what could have happened since then?

“Hey, you okay?” A man’s voice. When I turn, there are two new guards at the windowed doors. At least neither is the Wolf.

“Where is everyone?” I ask.

“Um, asleep?” the guard on the left with the full beard and the thicker waist says. He looks at his watch. “It’s past two a.m. You need us to get a doctor or something?”

Mostly he’s hoping I’ll go. I can feel that much. I am making him nervous being here. And he doesn’t even know that I am the one who tried to run. He’s afraid of something happening, of things ending badly. He does not trust himself to be restrained. These men, whoever they are, are not regular hospital security. It is not until that moment that I am sure.

Maybe I’ve been seeing this entire situation wrong. Maybe there isn’t one thing going on, one group of people. There could be—like Kendall said—many moving parts. There’s Dr. Haddox—and his boss, the fame-chasing Dr. Cornelia. There’s the NIH and the guards who seem more like Agent Klute and his friends. Who’s to say they aren’t each on their own team?

The thought of my problems multiplying in that way makes me shudder hard. And that makes the other officer step forward. He is thinner and with a beard, too, but his is spotty and mangy. “Something wrong with you?”

Yes. No. Yes. Such a simple question has become unanswerable. I shake my head too hard and too many times as I back toward the door.

“No, I’m fine,” I say, sounding far from it. “Is Dr. Haddox anywhere around? Because I was hoping to use the phone.”

The guard with the full beard raises an eyebrow at his partner. This asking about the phone has shifted something. “It’s two a.m. Like I said. He’s home asleep. And you’ve got to get clearance from him for the phone.”