Never As It Seems

Escape

"First off," he said, "I need to find my friends." 

She blinked. "What friends?"

"Very funny. Adam and Rick...and you, I guess, although I don't know how you could be both there and here. Whatever. I have no idea where they are and I'm thinking if I'm going to destroy the Fuzzy Guy like I want to and need to I'm going to need some help. And you don't exactly look like you're up for the challenge." 

She shrugged. "I've got time. So it's just those three?" 

"Yeah." 

"Hmm," she said. "You know, you weren't the only one brought into jail earlier. I wasn't there to witness it, but I when I went to, ahem, rescue you, I heard this guy mention in passing that they had arrested three people for fraud and that they looked nothing like he would envision criminals to look like. Do you think that might have been them?" 

"Three people? Arrested at the same time as me? Didn't look like criminals? I don't think there's a coincidence going on here." 

She nodded. "Well, you're going to have to disguise yourself again." 

"Can't you go over there and pay for their bail, too?" 

She laughed. "No way. Do you know how suspicious it would look for me to pay for you to get out of jail and to come back later to pay for other people?" 

"Pretty suspicious, I guess." 

"Yeah. But I think I do have enough money for that." 

He stared at her. "Are you joking with me?" 

She winked. "I told you I have my ways." 

"But....oh, whatever." 

"Here." She reached over and grabbed a wallet off the nightstand next to the bed, and started rummaging through it. "Aha. Here it is. This should be enough, shouldn't it?" 

She handed him a small stack of bills, and he checked it over.  

"Four hundred dollars?" he said, sounding shocked.  

"I guess I won't be buying a steak dinner for a while, but you know, it's okay. I'm thinking of going vegetarian anyway." 

He stared at her. "All this money and you're talking about food?" 

"Hey, no big difference from you every day. Take it, I'll be fine. I could pretend I went shopping if anyone wonders where it went." 

He looked at the stack of money again. "That's a lot of food that you would have to buy." 

"Let's pretend I went to Costco." 

"You do whatever you want, darling. Well, I think my head's feeling better, anyway." 

She smiled. "Good. Then up and out." She stood up fully, grabbed the bed covers, and pulled them off of Flames. He yelped as the sudden coolness of the air enveloped him. 

"Hey!" 

"I didn't say I was going to be completely fair about that. Come on, if you want to get your friends out of jail you'll have to do it quickly. They don't allow it after 7:30." 

"What time is it now?" 

"Just after 6:45, so you've got a bit of time. Do you know where the jail is?" 

He shook his head. 

"All right. So once you walk out of this building you turn left on to New Broadway. You walk three blocks and then turn left on to a different road that I don't remember the name of, and then about a quarter of a mile you'll see a sign for the jail, and it will lead straight up."