No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

Jay didn’t blink, her bloodstained fingers on the kennel
bars. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
“Promise you’ll be careful—”
“I promise.”
The girl extended her unhurt hand to Darby. At first she
thought it was a handshake, or a pinkie-swear, or some other
half-remembered artifact from her own childhood, but then Jay
dropped something into Darby’s palm. Something small,
metallic, as cold as an ice cube.
It was a bullet.
“I found it on the floor,” Jay whispered.
It was lighter than Darby would have guessed, like a blunt
little torpedo. She rolled it left to right on her skin. Her palm
was shaking; she almost dropped it. This wasn’t a surprise,
exactly, but just a grim confirmation of her worst-case
scenario.
Of course Lars has a gun.
Of course.
She should have guessed. This was America, where cops
and robbers carry guns. Where, as the NRA tells us, the only
thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
Hokey, but true as hell. She’d never even handled a firearm
before, let alone shot one, but she’d sell her soul to have one
right now.
She realized Jay was still looking at her.
Usually, she hated talking to kids. Whenever she was
trapped with her nieces or her friends’ younger siblings, she’d
always treated them like smaller, dumber adults. But now, it
came easy. She didn’t need to mince words. She meant every
bit of it, and rewording it would only dilute its simple power:
“Jay, I promise I will get you out of here. I will save you.”