We found Barry in the last cell-like room. It wasn’t quite the dungeon you might have expected – it was more like a crib, but he had been locked in for sure. Thea simply took the key from the hand of our escort and unlocked it herself.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

“Whaaa?” Barry seemed groggy, so I grabbed his hand and pulled him out. There was no feasible reason he would have chosen to come here. I started to wonder if he’d been drugged or something. Either way, I cared about getting him out of here.

Thea shoved the employee into the room and locked the door, which got her a bit of a smile from me. I rather wanted to do the same thing, after all. Well, no. I wanted to do worse to whoever was behind this. With a bit of a goofy smile, Barry followed us. “I’m not taking him home like this. Any way we can sober him up first?”

Thea shook her head. “Take him to the hospital. Give them some good story that ends with spiked pop.”

That…did sound like a good story, as she led us out through the back of the club…if anyone saw me go in, they’d at least have seen me go in without Barry. Hopefully no twos would be put together. Once we were somewhat clear, I called 911, asking for an ambulance. By the time I’d finished talking Thea, and her motorcycle, were gone.

Barry slumped against the wall. “Jane?”

“Don’t worry. Somebody spiked your drink.” I had a feeling he’d believe me, right now, seize onto that as some evidence and vestige of sanity.

“Ugh.”

“I called an ambulance.” The nearest hospital was just further away than I wanted to try and walk through the streets with him.

“I don’t remember anything except weird people…one of them had a sword.”

A hallucination? Or reality? Supervillains with swords? It could have been worse, and part of me struggled for some knowledge of what was worse, hoping worse didn’t exist.

I hoped I hadn’t somehow ended up on the side of the villains…had I made the right choice trusting Thea over Mr. Otter?

Or had it been a choice at all? The ambulance pulled up, took charge of Barry. Experts, checking his pulse, looking at his eyes, doing all the things they needed to do.

“Somebody gave him PCP. You did well to bring him in.”

“He drank his pop, got really…weird.”

“You’ll stick by that with the police, right?”

“Hell yes. Barry doesn’t take drugs. And that stuff’s bad, right?”

“Bad enough.”