They don’t want to kill me here, in front of witnesses.
Because then they’d have to kill Ed and Sandi, too, and that seemed to be a last resort. One homicide was probably easier to manage than three. They’d wanted to kill or incapacitate her outside — discreetly, but she’d outsmarted them: hurtled face-first through a tiny-ass window, bruised her spine on a toilet, and earned herself another ten minutes of life.
Those ten minutes were almost up.
Inhale, she reminded herself. Count to five. Exhale. She had to keep her breaths full and steady. She couldn’t lose it. Not now.
Inhale. Count to five. Exhale.
Ashley glanced over her shoulder, to his brother, and gave a slight but commanding nod. Without question, he was the alpha. If Darby killed one of them tonight, it would need to be him.
She wondered how much of what he’d said was true. The buried car outside wasn’t really his. Was he really studying accounting in Salt Lake City? Had he really almost died in a coalmine in Oregon with his thumb crushed inside a rusty hinge? 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.
It was past midnight now. Darby had to make it for another six hours until the CDOT snowplows arrived at dawn and opened up the highway for an escape. That was a lot of ten-minute increments. But she’d try.
She didn’t know what Ashley’s little nod to his brother had meant — so far, Lars had remained glued to the front door — but she didn’t like it. The two brothers had just made another silent chess move against her, and she was now, again, on the defensive.
But as long as Ed and Sandi are here, they won’t kill me.
She glanced up at the clock on the wall, and for a bleak moment, she thought about how far away dawn was. How dark and cold the night was. How outnumbered and outmatched she was. They could kill everyone in this room. Maybe they planned to. Maybe the threat on the napkin was just a little game.
Ashley grinned, like he’d read her mind.
This stalemate won’t last.
“Alright, everyone,” he said cheerily. “War with Darbs seems to be a bust. Who’s up for a new round of circle-time?”
Ed shrugged. “Sure.”
“Let’s do . . . first job? No. Let’s do favorite movies.” Ashley glanced around the stuffy room, a beaming game-show host. “Okay if I answer first again?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Alright. Actually — well, I don’t have a single favorite movie, but rather, a favorite genre of movies. Is that acceptable for everyone?”
Ed gave a who-cares hand wave.
“Monster movies,” Ashley said, his eyes darting back across the table to Darby. “Not, like, small monsters like werewolves. I’m talking about the huge, towering ones, twenty stories tall, like Godzilla and Rodan. Kaiju movies, they’re called in Japan. You know the kind, where something big is terrorizing a city, hurling model cars around?”
Ed nodded, not really listening. He was tilting his coffee cup, trying to capture the last few precious drops.
It didn’t matter, because Ashley was only looking at Darby as he spoke, his words clean and composed, revealing his Crest-white teeth: “See, golly, I just love kaiju movies. And . . . the thing I find fascinating about them is this. The human heroes — Bryan Cranston and that bland Sergeant Vanilla guy, in the 2014 Godzilla reboot, for example — they’re just placeholders. They’re ciphers for the audience. Do these puny humans have any effect on the actual plot?”
He let his rhetorical question float for longer than necessary.
“Nope,” he finally answered. “Zero. Their role in the story is entirely reactive. Godzilla, Mothra, the MUTO’s — the true stars of the show — they’re going to fight and settle their business, and the humans can’t possibly hope to stop the carnage. Does this make sense to you?”
Darby didn’t answer.
“No matter what you try, the monsters are going to do what they want.” Ashley leaned forward, creaking his chair, and she whiffed his moist breath as his voice lowered into a husky croak: “See, the monsters are gonna fight, and flatten skyscrapers and smash bridges, and all you can do is get the hell out of their way, or you’re gonna get crushed.”
Silence.
She couldn’t look away. Like staring down a rabid animal.
His breath was overpowering. Like boiled egg yolks and bitter French Roast, curdling with meat-like odors. Sixty minutes ago, his tongue had been a warm slug in her mouth. But now his boyish smile returned, like slipping a rubber Halloween mask back on, and in another moment, he was back to being the jovial chatterbox she’d first met. “So, what about you, Darbs? What’s your favorite type of movie? Horror? Ghosts? Torture-porn?”
“Romcoms,” she answered.
Lars giggled by the front door, a raspy noise that reminded her of a chainsaw on idle. Ashley traded glances with his brother, and his lips curled a little as the swirling snow intensified outside. “This is . . . this is going to be a fun night.”
Maybe so, Darby thought, looking him in the eye.
But I promise, I won’t make it easy.
“But,” Ashley said, rubbing his eyes in stage-managed sleepiness. “I admit, I would kill for a cup of coffee right now.”
“Actually. . .” Ed considered. “Hey, you know, we have some in the truck. It’s the cheap-o instant camping type, where you just pour in the grounds and add hot water. It tastes like river silt, but it’s coffee. Anyone interested?”
“Cowboy coffee?” Ashley beamed, like a prospector discovering gold. He’d planned this. “That would be wonderful.”
“Sandi hates it.”
“Well, luckily she’s asleep.”
“Yeah? Takers? Alright.” Ed slipped on a pair of black winter gloves, moving to the door. “I’ll be back in a sec—”
“No worries.” Ashley’s grin inflated. “Take your time, amigo.”
Darby tried to think of something to say — wait, stop, please don’t leave the room — but her mind was as thick as peanut butter. The moment passed, and in another stomach-fluttering instant, Ed was gone. The visitor center’s front door swung closed, not quite engaging.
Lars pushed it — click.
The two brothers glanced at each other, then at Darby. In a microsecond, the room’s air pressure changed. The three of them were now alone. For however long it took Ed to walk out to Sandi’s truck, rummage through his luggage, find his camping coffee, and walk back. Sixty seconds, maybe?
Now . . . the only thing keeping Darby alive was Sandi.
And she wasn’t even awake. She snored like a purring cat on the blue bench, her arms crossed across her potbelly, her paperback precariously balanced on her face. The lightest breeze could disturb it. For the first time all night, Darby could read the title: Luck of the Devil. For the next sixty seconds or so, Darby’s life depended on how light of a sleeper this middle-aged woman was.
“Romcoms,” Ashley muttered under his breath. “That’s cute.”