No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

the deserted cafeteria, and took two half-hearted bites before
bolting to the restroom and vomiting. She’d called Devon right
there in the stall, her elbows on bleached porcelain, her cheeks
burning with tears.
There’s refuge in normalcy — if you can hold onto it.
Outside Lars’s van, she kept counting.
By now she’d reached fifty, and still seen no sign of this
imaginary child. It made sense, right? The same way perfectly
rational people swear to see red lights in the sky, or phantoms
in mirrors, or Bigfoot in national parks — Darby Thorne had
just imagined a child’s hand inside a stranger’s car, and nearly
taken serious and violent action on that half-glimpsed mirage.
Too much caffeine, not enough sleep.
This wasn’t a movie. This was just real life.
And this was all just a misunderstanding, a false alarm,
and Darby suddenly couldn’t wait to return to that stuffy little
visitor center. Now the company didn’t seem so bad at all.
She’d try and play cards with Ashley, maybe chat with Ed and
Sandi. Perhaps doze off on the bench until CDOT updated
their emergency frequency with more weather details.
Because Lars wasn’t a kidnapper after all. He was a creep
with a stutter and a bumpy skin condition on his hands, sure,
but the world was brimming with creeps. Most were harmless.
Since the owner of this Astro likely was, too, she regained
some courage and pressed her phone to the van’s back window
and engaged her LED flashlight, triggering a wash of blinding
blue-white. Just to put the last of her suspicions to rest, to
finally confirm there was nothing—
Behind the glass, she saw a little girl’s face staring back at
her.
Darby dropped her phone.
The LED light landed sideways at her feet, facing the
Wanapa visitor center like a beacon, throwing jagged shadows
in the snow. She dove for it, covering it with her cupped hands
and fumbling for the shoulder button.