No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

“We could’ve gone to Idaho. Together.” Ashley kicked the
table again, scooting it forward another scraping inch,
shedding splinters. His voice boomed in the pressurized air:
“Don’t you get it? We could’ve gone to Rathdrum. Rented the
loft over my uncle’s garage. I’d do jobs with Fox Contracting.
You’d be my girl, and we’d leave our cities behind, you and
me, and I’d show you the river I grew up on, and the trestle—”
“Is he telling the truth?” Jay asked.
Darby sighed. “I don’t even think he knows.”
Ashley Garver — a piteous creature that wore so many
masks, he didn’t even know what he looked like beneath them.
Maybe his heart was breaking, even as he discovered he had
one. Or maybe it was all just words.
“You could’ve been my girl,” he wailed, “but you fuckin’
ruined it—”
Darby aimed the Beretta as the table shifted again. But she
couldn’t fire yet. She would have to wait. She’d have to wait
until Ashley Garver was visible, until he scraped the table
aside and vaulted in through the broken window. Then, and
only then, could she—
No.
She froze, the trigger half-pulled. The hammer cocked
back, a heartbeat away from dropping. Something else,
something terrible, had just occurred to her.
No, no, no …
The pungent taste of gasoline, sharp on her tongue. The
tipped fuel jug had now drained itself empty, a half-inch
spreading to coat the entire floor. Fumes crowded the air,
sweating beads on the walls.
If I fire Lars’s handgun, she realized with dawning horror,
the muzzle blast could ignite the vapor in the air. The chain
reaction would incinerate the entire room. There were five
gallons spilled in here. The floor would become a sea of
rolling fire, like dropping the world’s biggest Molotov