No Exit

Darby realizes with horror that they are still within sight of the rest stop. She tries to dig the truck out despite the enormous amount of snow, telling Jay to keep an eye on her phone. She feels incredulous despair that the police are only seven miles away at the accident site and yet inaccessible. Jay reports that Darby’s text went through; a response from the police says help will arrive in 30 minutes. Jay freezes; Ashley is right behind Darby.

Ashley delights in the moment before he shoots Darby until she, unafraid, warns him that if he shoots her, he will never find his hidden keys. All the other cars have been incapacitated.

Ashley snatches Darby’s phone and she tenses, waiting for him to realize the police will arrive soon, but he only checks her calls, not her texts, which all say, “call failed.” He threatens her with torture as he marches her back to the visitor center at nail-gun-point, and Darby realizes he will kill her the moment she reveals the keys’ location. Ashley says she received a text, which causes Darby to fear he has seen the text from the police, but it is a message from her sister, telling her their mom has died. Ashley taunts her, then breaks her phone.

Inside the rest stop, Sandi is trying to help Ed, who sits slumped, his jaw still bleeding. Ashley says this is a “red card.” Darby disassociates, thinking of her mother. She glances at the clock, realizing it has been 21 minutes since the message from the police. Lars tries to calm Jay, who cries over Ed’s injured face. Bereft, Darby tells Ashley she was a terrible daughter, and he professes regret for her loss, which he insists is genuine. He says he wishes Darby were his girlfriend and claims that “all this” is not his true self. He asks her to tell him where the keys are “before it gets ugly” (141), and then, when she refuses, slams her pinkie finger in a door hinge.

Ron Hill, the highway patrolman sent in response to Darby’s text, distractedly heads to the rest stop, thinking about his wife, who he thinks plans to leave him. Inside the rest stop, Darby struggles to stay conscious, given the pain in her hand. Sandi again insists that Ashley promised nobody would get hurt, and he confesses that he had been lying all along. He slams her to the ground and breaks her neck. Darby is horrified, but Lars is delighted. Ashley reveals that Sandi planned to donate her share of the ransom money to battered-women’s shelters. Ashley reports their original plan to Darby, which had been to quietly ransom Jay, and how a break-in at the storage facility where Sandi had stored Jay’s adrenaline shots had compromised their plan. Sandi had planned to meet them at the rest stop to give them keys to her family cabin without being detected by the police, whereupon they were snowed in, and Darby arrived. Ed was merely part of Sandi’s excuse to leave California without rousing suspicions. Ashley always intended to kill Sandi when they met, as he believed her a liability.

Ashley threatens to kill Ed if Darby doesn’t reveal the location of the keys. She apologizes to Ed, saying that if she gives in, Ashley will just kill them both. Ed nods in understanding.

Ron Hill knocks on the door of Wanasho visitor center as Darby, miles away, realizes that she made a typo in her text. They are at Wanashono visitor center. Despondent, she tells Ashley the location of the keys. He kills Ed.

Ashley warns Lars not to kill Darby until he confirms the keys’ location. Lars dumps gasoline over Ed’s and Sandi’s bodies, then on Darby. Darby thinks that the brothers are going to get caught no matter their efforts, which angers rather than comforts her. Jay gives Darby her Swiss Army knife back, which Darby initially thinks is pointless.

Lars threatens Darby and Jay with the gun, but Darby stares at him, unflinching, which makes him nervous. He calls for Ashley but receives no answer. Darby reaches up and switches off the light in the room. With his flashlight, Lars sees Jay dart to lock the door, but he can’t watch her and Darby at the same time. He turns the flashlight back to Darby, but she is gone, the remnants of her finger still stuck in the door.

Darby tackles Lars, stabbing him in the throat with the Swiss Army knife. He points his gun at her with the hand not clutching his throat. From outside, Ashley hears a gunshot just as he finds the keys. He assumes Lars shot Darby. Inside, Darby and Lars wrestle for the gun, Darby using Lars’s hold on the trigger to break his finger. Lars releases the empty gun and Darby uses it to punch him in the mouth repeatedly. He kicks her away and she grabs the Swiss Army knife, then tells Jay to look away.

Ashley pounds at the door of the rest stop, calling for his brother. Darby’s voice returns, taunting that Lars is dead and she has the gun. Ashley retorts that he knows the gun is empty. Darby, however, has the spare cartridge. Darby risks a glance at her hand; the ring finger is damaged, the pinkie partially missing. She tries to stem the bleeding with Lars’s electrical tape. She lies to Jay, saying fingers grow back, to reassure the child. Ashley yells for Darby from outside. He hammers a hole in the door and starts shooting nails through. Darby and Jay hide in the small coffee shop as nails cause splinters of wood to ricochet. Ashley howls about the romantic relationship he and Darby could have had. Darby wants him to come inside so she can shoot him until she realizes that a spark from the gunshot could cause the gasoline in the room to ignite. She and Jay run for the restroom window.

Ashley breaks into the rest stop, aghast at the sight of Lars’s body. The gasoline vapors sting his eyes, and he thinks of his plan to painfully kill Darby as he hears a sound: napkins igniting where they have been shoved in a toaster. He realizes what is happening in the instant before the building explodes.

Darby and Jay escape through the bathroom window just in time, though Darby injures her ankle. As they limp away from the burning building, shedding their gasoline-soaked coats, Darby insists that Ashley isn’t dead. She considers her lack of remorse over killing Lars and her determination to kill Ashley. In the distance, they see the approach of snowplows and feel relief that rescue is imminent. Jay alerts Darby to Ashley’s approach.

Darby tells Jay to run toward the headlights while she faces off against Ashley. Darby can’t run on her broken ankle, but is determined to end things between them once and for all. Ashley begins shooting nails at them. Jay runs off after telling Darby not to miss with her one remaining bullet.

Ashley is astonished to see Darby heading toward him, rather than away. He aims the nail gun at her, but its battery dies at a crucial moment. Darby raises the gun, shocking him. Jay reaches the snowplow, which is accompanied by a highway-patrol truck. She wants to tell the driver about Darby but collapses into tears before she can.

Ashley runs back to the van, where he scrambles for the spare battery to the nail gun. Though he is certain he counted the shots Lars fired and is convinced the gun is empty, he is still afraid. He freezes, sensing Darby standing behind him. She demands to know his plans for Jay. Attempting to buy time, Ashley admits that he intended to sell Jay to his uncle Kenny, who continues to traffic women and children out of the storm cellar where Ashley discovered the woman as a child. She demands Kenny’s name and address as Ashley stealthily loads the new battery into the nail gun. Darby pulls the trigger.

Ashley, astonished he is still alive, realizes that a policeman, Ron Hill, has shot Darby. He is delighted as he watches her collapse. He shoots Ron with the nail gun twice.