No Exit by Taylor Adams

Author:Taylor Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

1:23 A.M.

From her angle, Darby couldn’t quite see it.

But she knew what Ashley saw—Jay’s dog kennel clumsily sawed apart from the inside, the Astro’s rear door pushed open, and a pair of small footprints leading out into the darkness.

He stared, mouth agape with dull shock, before glancing back to Darby: “If she tries to run, shoot her.”

She turned—but Lars had already circled the van and appeared behind her with that stubby handgun held waist-high, aimed at her stomach.

She caught her breath. Surrounded again.

“I don’t . . . I don’t believe it.” Ashley paced, his fingers digging into his scalp, and Darby noticed his hairline was every bit as severe as his younger brother’s. He grew his bangs out to cover the receding bits.

She couldn’t help but feel a grim satisfaction. She loved it. For all of Ashley’s smugness and posturing tonight, she’d still managed to hurl one hell of a wrench into their plan. Little Jaybird was loose.

Ashley kicked the Astro’s side, bruising the metal. “I don’t fucking believe it—”

Lars edged back.

But Darby couldn’t resist. There was too much white-hot adrenaline in her veins. Two minutes ago, he’d been asphyxiating her with a plastic bag and she was still furious about that, still bristling with reckless energy. “Hey, Ashley. I’m no expert on kidnappings, but doesn’t it only work if there’s a kid in there?”

He turned to face her.

She shrugged. “Just my amateur opinion.”

“You . . .” Lars raised his pistol. “You should stop—”

“And you should eat a goddamn breath mint.” Darby looked back to Ashley, her words shivery and raw, unspooling like twine: “Are you sure about that little speech of yours? Helpless humans just letting the big, scary monsters do their thing? Because I think I just influenced the plot, motherfucker—”

He stomped toward her.

She flinched, regretting her momentary loss of control, and Ashley raised the rock-in-a-sock as he charged, winding up for a skull-fracturing impact, but then at the last instant he sidestepped past her and threw it.

She opened her eyes.

He’d been aiming at a streetlight. Two hundred feet away. After a few airy moments of flight, the rock hit the post squarely, bouncing off the metal with a warbling clang. It echoed twice.

Most NFL quarterbacks couldn’t do that.

Lars whispered: “Magic.”

I’m a magic man, Lars, my brother.

They’d been toying with her this entire night, she realized. Manipulating her. Pretending to be strangers, working the room, dropping flagrant lies and obtuse little hints and studying how she reacted. Like a rat in their maze.

Can you cut a girl in half?

I can. But you only win gold if she survives.

That roomful of anxious laughter rang again inside her brain, as tinny as microphone feedback. Her migraine had returned.

Ashley wiped saliva from his mouth and turned back to Darby, his breath curling in the mountain air. “You don’t get it yet, Darbs. It’s all right. You will.”

Get what?

This gave her a sick chill. Her adrenaline high, her crazy-stupid fearlessness—it was all slipping away, fading like a weak buzz. Two beers, fun while they last, but gone by dessert.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.