Darby drives through a mountain blizzard toward home after learning her mother has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

Darby pulls into a rest stop, where four strangers — Ed, Sandi, Ashley, and Lars — are stranded by the snow.

Darby passes a gray van in the parking lot and glimpses what appears to be a small child's hand pressed against the glass.

Darby breaks into the van using her shoelace and finds a nine-year-old girl named Jay locked inside a dog kennel.

Darby recruits Ashley as her ally and they plan together for Darby to lure Lars outside while Ashley ambushes him.

Jay warns Darby there are two kidnappers just as Darby sees Ashley and Lars standing together, revealing they are brothers.

Ashley leaves Darby a threatening note warning he will kill Ed and Sandi if she reveals the kidnapping to them.

Ashley corners Darby in the restroom and presses a plastic bag over her face, nearly suffocating her to death.

Jay escapes from the van on her own, forcing Darby, Ashley, and Lars to search for her in the blizzard.

Darby returns to the rest stop with Jay alive, but Sandi reveals herself as a conspirator by pepper-spraying Darby.

Darby steals Sandi's truck to escape, but the vehicle crashes into a snowdrift shortly after leaving the rest stop.

Darby's emergency text to 911 finally sends and police promise help in 30 minutes; then a message arrives that her mother has died.

Ashley kills Sandi by breaking her neck, then kills Ed with his nail gun after Darby reveals the van keys' location.

Darby kills Lars with the Swiss Army knife in the darkened rest stop, and the building erupts in flames.

Jay shoots Ashley in the face with Lars's gun; Darby writes the trafficker Kenny's name on her arm before losing consciousness.

Darby Thorne abandons her desperate drive home to a dying mother when she discovers a nine-year-old girl named Jay locked in a van at a snowed-in Colorado rest stop. She recruits a fellow traveler named Ashley as an ally, only to discover he is the kidnapping's co-mastermind and that the conspiracy runs deeper than she imagined. Attacked, isolated, and stripped of nearly every advantage, Darby refuses to surrender even as the violence escalates and a message arrives that her mother has died. The pool traces the full arc of the night's central conflict — from Darby's first glimpse of Jay to the brutal sequence of deaths that Ashley inflicts on those around her. Darby kills one of the brothers in the darkness while the rest stop burns around them. The young victim Jay delivers the final blow against Ashley, ending the nightmare that began in the parking lot.

Darby's loose windshield wiper snaps off during the blizzard, reducing her visibility and forcing her to stop at the rest area.

Ashley jokes with Darby about their opposite-gendered names and points her toward outdoor statues where a weak cell signal exists.

An emergency radio broadcast announces the storm will keep all travelers stranded at the rest stop for 8 to 10 hours.

Darby drafts a detailed text message to 911 with Jay's location and the kidnapping details, but it fails to send.

Jay reveals that her kidnapper punished her by firing a nail through her hand, an act the brothers call a yellow card.

Lars removes Darby's discarded Styrofoam cup from his pocket, signaling to her that he knows she went to the van.

Lars enters the bathroom while Darby briefs Ashley on the kidnapping, and Ashley hastily kisses Darby to disguise their conversation.

Ed confesses during an icebreaker game that he fears his alcohol addiction has permanently damaged his relationship with his children.

Darby goes outside to execute the ambush plan against Lars, but Lars never follows her and the scheme collapses entirely.

Darby extinguishes her flashlight in the open blizzard, plunging the group into darkness and successfully evading Lars's gunshot.

Ashley uses his nail gun to puncture the tires of every vehicle in the parking lot before Darby attempts to escape.

Ashley explains to Darby the full logistics of the kidnapping plot, including Sandi's planned role collecting ransom money for battered-women's shelters.

A highway patrolman named Ron Hill is dispatched toward the rest stop in response to Darby's text but drives to the wrong location.

Ashley's nail gun battery dies from the cold just as he prepares to shoot Darby in their final outdoor confrontation.

Jay and her family travel to Provo to visit Maya's grave with Darby, who feels at peace about her mother's love.

These events capture the texture of the crisis around its central conflict — the mechanical failures, missed connections, and concealed roles that determined how the night unfolded. Darby's repeated attempts to reach emergency services illustrate the isolation that makes her situation so devastating, while small but pivotal moments like Lars spotting a discarded cup and the failed ambush constantly shift the power balance between Darby and her captors. Ashley's backstory about the kidnapping's logistics and Sandi's planned role deepen the conspiracy beyond what the main plot reveals on its own. A highway patrolman's fatal navigation error and Ashley's dying nail gun battery show how close Darby came to both rescue and death in the final hour. The pool ends in the epilogue, where Jay's family and Darby visit Maya's grave, confirming survival and the beginning of healing.

The hidden mechanisms and supporting moments that shaped the night.

Darby deduces that Lars owns the gray van by methodically matching each stranger's behavior and appearance to the parked cars.

Lars climbs into the van's front seat to run the heat while Darby conceals herself beneath a towel inches behind him.

Darby retrieves her Swiss Army knife from her car and sketches Lars's face as evidence she hopes to hand to police.

Darby makes a makeshift weapon called the rock-in-a-sock by stuffing a chunk of mortar into one of Ashley's socks.

Ashley taunts Darby during the icebreaker game with a speech about kaiju films where human characters exist only to be crushed.

Ashley smashes Darby's face into a table, bloodying her nose, then tells the waking Sandi that the altitude caused the nosebleed.

Ashley recalls a childhood memory of discovering his uncle Kenny's imprisoned trafficking victim in a storm cellar and choosing to say nothing.

Darby bites through the suffocation bag, slams Ashley into the sink, steals his van keys, and escapes through the restroom window.

Jay slips Darby a secret handwritten note inside the rest stop warning her not to trust Ed and Sandi.

Ed uses Jay's medical bracelet to determine she has Addison's disease and will die without steroid injections she hasn't received in days.

Ashley slams Darby's fingers into a door hinge repeatedly when she refuses to reveal where she hid the van keys.

Darby realizes she accidentally typed the wrong rest stop name in her 911 text, meaning police were sent to the wrong location.

Darby tears her damaged hand free from the door hinge and signals Jay to cut the lights before killing Lars in the dark.

A highway patrolman arrives at the correct rest stop but misreads the scene and shoots Darby rather than Ashley.

An unfinished email draft from Kenny to Ashley reveals he had buyers ready for Jay and ends mid-sentence as someone knocks at his door.

This pool traces the pivotal revelations, key decisions, and emotional shifts that exposed the true nature of the conspiracy and determined the outcome of Darby's night. From her initial detective work identifying the van's owner to the chilling disclosure of Ashley's childhood and his uncle Kenny's trafficking operation, these events reveal the moral and psychological core of the story. Crucial reversals — Darby escaping a suffocation attempt, Jay's secret warning note, and the catastrophic typo in the 911 message — demonstrate how precarious survival was at every stage. Ashley's escalating cruelty, culminating in breaking Darby's fingers in a door hinge, is matched by her ferocious determination to protect Jay at any personal cost. The pool closes with an unfinished email from Kenny that implies the police have arrived at his door, confirming the full reach of the justice Darby fought to deliver.