No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

I won’t.
* * *
Ashley was perplexed to see them separate — Jaybird ran
for the incoming snowplow while Darby turned around to face
him.
They were now twenty paces apart.
His right fist throbbed like it was full of gravel. The skin
on his cheeks and forehead felt tight, tingly, like a sunburn.
His lips were cracked, splitting and leaking down his chin. He
reeked of burnt skin and hair, a dense and fatty odor curling
off him in wisps of smoke. His North Face jacket had melted
weirdly to his back, hanging off in molten strings.
But hell, he was alive. No rest for the wicked, right? And
he was feeling pretty goddamn wicked tonight. He’d broken a
woman’s neck with his bare hands and nail-gunned an
innocent man to death. It’d make for a hell of an episode of
Forensic Files. To do all that, then to dive out the window of
an exploding building while sustaining only second-degree
burns takes the luck of the devil. Jelly-side up, indeed.
Now he noticed that Darby was limping toward him.
Away from the bright lights of safety. Away from any hope of
escape.
Toward him.
He choked on a laugh that sounded like a bark. Maybe …
maybe she’d gone a little crazy, too, in this wild pressure
cooker of a night. He couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t even sure
he could hate her — his brain was a potent sugar rush, a
cocktail of confused feelings for this tenacious bitch. But
feelings aside, he still had to red-card her for killing his baby
brother, so he raised the cordless nailer at Darby, squinted
through hot smoke, and fired again.
A hollow click.
What?