No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

veiled joke that Lars didn’t get. This was normal. He never got
jokes. Most of the time, they were about him.
A sore cavity in his stomach told him this one was, too.
Like the moment before Ashley had hurled Stripes into that
campfire two summers ago: Hey, baby brother. Wanna see a
shooting star?
“Jaybird,” he repeated.
No reaction.
“Jaybird, you’re … ah, you’re gonna get a red card when
Ashley gets back,” he said, glancing back left to the closet
door, pointing his flashlight back at Darby—
She wasn’t there.
Just the door. A trickle of blood. And a mashed little red
piece still wedged in the door, like the juicy inside of a rare
hamburger, and it took a half-second to register in Lars’s thick
mind as what it really was, what it meant, what had just
happened, and what was coming—
* * *
Darby slammed into Rodent Face hard, from the side,
sending the flashlight tumbling into wild shadows. No time for
fear. Screaming with pain and adrenaline, something raw,
black, and feral.
She got under Lars’s right arm, under the pistol, and
knocked it aside, clattering against the brochure rack. She had
one chance now, one racing chance — and she also had her
father’s Swiss Army knife in her left hand (Congratulations on
Graduating College!), its blade dulled from sawing through
the bars of Jay’s dog kennel, but still sharp enough — and with
it, she throat-punched Larson Garver squarely in his Adam’s
apple.
The knife slipped right in.
Blood spurted into her face. Into her eyes, her mouth. The
taste of warm nickels. Lars’s hand swiped at her, his sharp