No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

1:09 a.m.
Jay Nissen sawed through the last bar on the dog kennel.
She’d cut them one at a time, sawing with the toothed
knife the way the red-haired young woman had instructed.
Like a miniature tree cutter. Her left hand throbbed with pins
and needles, so it took a long time. Twice, she’d dropped the
knife and had to grope for it in the darkness. Once, she’d
feared it had bounced outside the kennel and been lost forever.
But she found it.
And now?
With a push, the grating fell away and chattered against
the van’s door.
This was the first time the cage had been open since they
took her. She didn’t know how many days ago. She hadn’t
been counting. Going more than a night without her shots
made her woozy, and since then she’d fallen into an irregular
rhythm of sickly, four-hour naps. The sun had been up and
down, rising and falling from different windows. The smell of
ketchup, ranch sauce, and stale sweat dewing on glass. The
crumple of Jack in the Box wrappers. Their murmuring voices,
Ashley’s knee-slapping jokes, the hum of blacktop, the urgent
tick of the van’s turn signal. Could it have been a week
already? What were her parents doing right now?
Her Wii U controller had been charging when they came
to her house.
She’d been plugging the gray wire into the Nintendo port
when a single, sharp knock came from the front door. Like a
tennis ball. She’d scurried to the door and opened it a few
inches — there’s a little brass chain the door catches on — and
that was when she first saw him, the one she now knew as
Lars. Back then, he hadn’t developed his head cold yet. He’d
smiled thickly down and told her he was here with the Fox