The Outliers (The Outskirts Duet #2)

“Just a little, I suppose.”

I crawled off my mother and took a chair next to her. She linked her hand with mine like she’d done it a million times. I looked down at where our hands were connected and I still couldn’t believe it was all real. “You used to steal her sunflowers,” I said to Finn, recalling what my mother had told me during our first conversation.

“He sure did,” she confirmed.

“I guess all of my secrets are out now,” Finn said, rocking back on his heels.

“Critter is very happy that you and Sawyer found each other,” my mother said, looking between Finn and Critter.

He was?

Finn’s smile was a sad one. “That’s nice to hear. The last conversation we had about me and Sawyer ended with him telling me that he was gonna…well, we don’t need to get into it here let’s just say it ends with me in parts.”

“He threatened you?” I asked, both shocked and secretly elated that Critter was so protective over me when he’d known Finn his entire life and had only met me a few months before.

“Of course,” Finn said, leaning against the wall. “That’s what good fathers do to protect their daughters. I’d expect nothing less than the threat of an ass-kicking every other week at the very least.”

My mother looked over to Critter. “He’ll live to threaten another day. Because just like you, Finn, I have faith that he is going to pull through. I can feel it.” She placed her hand over her chest.

Finn excused himself again to the cafeteria where he told me he was going to get me some food whether I liked it or not.

“Two-decades and this still isn’t over yet,” my mother sighed. “But it needs to be over. It needs to end now.” There was a determination in her eyes when she said out loud the thoughts I’d been thinking all along.

My mother continued and I found myself nodding along to everything she was saying. I grew angrier and angrier with each sentence she spoke. “After all these years one man has still found a way to terrorize this family, despite all he’s already put us through. It’s still not enough. Keeping me against my will wasn’t enough. Threatening my family wasn’t good enough. Poisoning my husband…” she paused and composed herself. “It’s the final straw. I’m tired of standing by and doing nothing. He’s not going to stop. It will never be enough.” Her voice trailed off. “It will never be enough until we’re all dead.”

“And yet there doesn’t seem to be a single thing we can do about it.” I said, my frustrations bubbling up to the surface all over again.

“Or maybe, there is,” she whispered, the corner of her lip turning upward in a half smile. She took a deep breath and suddenly stood up from her wheelchair. I leapt up, half-expecting to have to catch her if she fell. But she didn’t fall. She straightened her shoulders and walked over to Critter’s beside like a queen ready to take care of the kingdom while the King was temporarily unable. She lifted his hand into hers and kissed it before covering it with her other hand.

This was a woman whose will, who’s very being had been burnt to ashes and yet here she was, ready to fight for her family. The determination radiating off her was almost tangible. I felt proud. I felt my own resolve to fight build from within me all over again.

For the first time in a long time I had a feeling that everything was okay. I guess you could even say that I had faith. And just maybe it was because of that faith that a deep voice bellowed from the bed behind me.

“What in the hell is all the fuss about?”





Chapter 17





Finn





I came into the room to find Critter awake and alert. He looked between Caroline and Sawyer then back again. He smiled, his moustache turning upward.

“Now I told you not to make a fuss,” he groaned, adjusting his position on the bed, trying to sit up higher.

Sawyer leaned down and wrapped her arms around Critter. Her shoulders shook with her joy, making my own heart skip a few beats and the tears pick the back of my eyes.

I may have grown up surrounded by these people, but to find out that Sawyer was related to Critter was probably the best news I’d ever heard, despite his threats toward me.

Because now it wasn’t just my family. It was OUR family.

“Hey mama. Hey kiddo,” Critter, wrapping one arm around Sawyer and the other Caroline.

“It’s so beautiful, man.”

I looked over to Miller who was sobbing at the sight. Tears streaming down his face. Strings of saliva connecting his teeth.

I laughed because I couldn’t NOT laugh.

Josh rolled her eyes and dragged Miller from the room. “Let’s let them have some time. You can come talk to him later,” she told him.

“You promise?” Miller squeaked as Josh lead him from the room with a wave over her shoulder.

The doctor showed up just as they left. The same one who saw Critter on the first day he was brought in by ambulance. “How are you feeling?” she asked Critter, checking numbers on a machine above his head.

Critter winced as Caroline adjusted his pillow. He continued to wince until he was settled back against them again.

“How am I feeling?” Critter repeated, his bushy eyebrows reaching into his forehead. “Like I’m in a god damned hospital. But I’m alive. So, there’s that.”

“You are,” Caroline said. “You’re here.”

“And so are you, baby.”

The looks they were exchanging were so full of love I thought immediately of my father’s words. Critter and Caroline had that forever factor he spoke about. I looked to Sawyer and I could see our future together. Our lives spent here in Outskirts. If I hadn’t known it before I knew it then. Sawyer was always meant to be my forever. And I was always meant to be hers.

“I never thought I’d talk to you again,” Sawyer admitted. “When they were carting you away…” she paused.

“Sorry I scared you,” Critter said. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

The doctor started to ramble off something using words like toxicity, ingesting, countermeasures, and just in time. She finished with, “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Critter said. “But what the hell happened? Should I worry about it happening again?”

We all stiffened. All of us of course except for the doctor who simply shrugged and kept her eyes trained on her clipboard. “Not unless you plan on being poisoned again any time soon.”

The room was dead silent as Critter’s eyes slowly widened. His fists curled up into balls on the bed. The only noise in that room was the echo of the doctor’s heels as she marched down the hall.

And the sound of Critter’s blood boiling.





Chapter 18





Sawyer





It had been a few weeks since Critter was released from the hospital. Since then Josh was working with my mother and Critter to make their case against Richard. They didn’t involve me. They said it was best if I knew as little as possible about what they were up to.