No Exit

by Taylor Adams

Tonight, every decision would leave footprints.

There’s refuge in normalcy—if you can hold on to it.

It was all really happening, right now, in vivid color, and a little girl’s life was really on the line, and tonight’s title match would be between a sleep-deprived art student and a human predator.

Darby preferred to live her life wide-eyed, tormented, running, because nothing can catch you if you never stop.

The difference between a hero and a victim? Timing.

You want to know the secret to ruining your life? It’s never one big black-and-white decision. It’s dozens of little ones, that you make every single day. It’s excuses, mostly, in my case. Excuses are poison.

“Doing the right thing is hard. Talking yourself out of it is easy.

And those green dragon eyes kept staring back at her, full of secrets. Jewel-like, scanning her body, assessing her dimensions, running contingencies and what ifs. They were frighteningly intelligent, in all the same ways Lars’s had been frighteningly dumb. But it was an icy intelligence.

Ashley seemed intoxicated by the act of lying, misdirecting, wearing different hats, presenting different versions of himself. He was a kid performing a magic show.

“You really got it. Keep pressure on your nose, and lean forward, not backward.” She tilted her head forward. “Good. Forward makes it clot. Backward, and it all pours down your throat and you get a stomach full of blood.”

History doesn’t quite repeat itself, but damn, it sure can rhyme.

She felt time dilate. A thick and comfortable rest settled over her, like a heavy wool blanket. She hated how good it felt.

Don’t fear the pros, Darby. The pros know what they’re doing, and do it cleanly. Fear the amateurs.

There was an intoxicating symmetry to their suffering tonight. Two wounded souls, each reeling from loss, each nursing damaged hands, joined by the rawest pain—

We’re the cats on the clock. I’m Garfield. You’re my Arlene.

I was waiting for that parallel to be made.

All she knew was that if she were given the choice, she’d do it all over again. Every minute of tonight. All of the pain. Every sacrifice. Because if saving a nine-year-old from child predators isn’t worth dying for, what the hell is?

Sometimes God puts people exactly where they need to be. Even when they don’t know it.