No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

she’d once mistaken for Ashley’s car. The icy flagpole,
standing like a needle. The bronze crowd of Nightmare
Children. And emerging from the darkness, half-buried in
windswept snow, with its dead lamp and barricaded window,
the Wanapani visitor center itself.
Big Devil, the name meant.
Then Ashley pivoted her — “Turn, turn,” and they
followed the footpath from the parking lot to the front door.
The final fifty feet.
I’ve saved Jay already, she reminded herself. I’ve gotten
the police involved. They have guns. They’ll take care of
Ashley and Lars.
All I have to do is survive.
This long walk back had taken ten, maybe fifteen minutes,
she guessed. So she was already halfway there.
Just fifteen more.
As the building crept closer, Darby realized something —
she wasn’t even afraid anymore. She was exhilarated, actually,
drunk with a strange sort of excitement. She’d already been
shot at, pepper-sprayed, and asphyxiated with a Ziploc bag,
and like a goddamn cockroach, she’d survived everything
Ashley and Lars — and even Sandi — had thrown at her.
Against all odds, Darby was still in this fight. It was too
personal; this eight-hour psychological duel with Ashley, all of
the night’s tricks and turns and wins and losses. And now she
had to witness her grisly checkmate. She wanted to be there
the second it happened, to see the shock on Ashley’s face
when the first approaching police car flashed red-and-blue. It
thrilled her, in a dark way she couldn’t describe.
You’ll hurt me, Ashley. You’ll hurt me bad. For these last
fifteen minutes or so, I’m all yours. But after that?
You’re mine.
And you have no idea—