No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

9:25 p.m.
Darby walked to the Nightmare Children first.
This was part of her plan — it would be suspicious to
beeline straight for the cars, and she had to assume Lars would
look out the window after he exited the restroom and found
her not there. Plus, she was leaving tracks in the snow. She
recognized her own from an hour ago, and Ashley’s, and
Lars’s (her size-eight shoes were so much smaller than theirs).
All filling with snowflakes.
Tonight, every decision would leave footprints.
As for decisions, the hot chocolate had been a dumb one.
About as dumb as Devon’s “Strength in Chinese” tattoo. She
didn’t know why she’d taken the time to pour a drink while a
possible child predator took a leak one room over. She just did
it. She’d burnt her tongue when she sipped it on her way
outside, like a real badass.
She circled the chewed-up statues, and then looped back
around the visitor center. The building teetered by the cliff’s
edge — just a narrow precipice behind a cement foundation
wall, made narrower by stacked picnic tables. On the
building’s back wall, she spotted two more windows. One for
each restroom. They were small and rectangular, about ten feet
off the ground, nestled under the icicled overhang of the roof.
She was certain Lars was finished in there already — she’d
heard the urinal flush minutes ago — but she moved quietly,
just in case.
She walked uphill, still play-acting the role of Girl
Without Cell Service. Of course, her iPhone detected nothing.
She tried re-sending her 9-1-1 text message every few paces,
but it never took. Her battery was now four percent.
From up here, she could survey the entire rest area, laid
out like a diorama. Wanapa — Little Devil, in the local tongue.
The stout little building. The flagpole. The cedar trunk. The