No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

bars like a jail cell. Duct tape was looped around her mouth in
clumsy twists.
Darby smelled a damp sourness. Urine.
For a long moment, she couldn’t speak. What could you
possibly say? There were no words for this situation. Like
swallowing a mouthful of peanut butter, she finally managed
to move her lips and say: “Hi.”
The girl stared at her with wide eyes.
“Are … are you okay?”
She shook her head.
Well, no shit.
“I’m …” Darby shivered under a gust of chilling wind,
realizing she hadn’t planned this far ahead. “Okay, I’m going
to take the duct tape off your face, so you can talk to me. Is
that alright?”
The girl nodded.
“It might hurt.”
The girl nodded harder.
Darby knew it would hurt; it was gummed up into her hair.
Lars had wrapped it lazily around her head, and it was the
black electrical kind. She reached through the gaps in the dog
kennel and found the tape’s seams with her fingernails.
Carefully, she peeled off the first loop, and then the second,
and as the little girl worked the rest, Darby asked: “What’s
your name?”
“Jay.”
“Do you know the man who drives this van?”
“No.”
“Did he take you?”
“Yeah.”