Ava Is Drugged During a Night at Inferno

Ava Is Drugged During a Night at Inferno turns an attempted ordinary evening with Ryan into a dangerous encounter inside Venus’s domain. Ava enters The Inferno already wishing to avoid it, then tries to keep Ryan and his friends safe without exposing why the venue frightens her. As she becomes disoriented and sick, the evening’s promise of normal teenage fun gives way to a rescue by Lock and Ezra—and, afterward, the realization that her symptoms were not caused by the small amount she accidentally drank.

A Surprise in Venus’s Territory

Ryan tells Ava that their destination is a surprise. When he parks, she recognizes the streets around The Inferno and hopes he has chosen some other restaurant in that part of Boston. Instead, they round a corner and see the red neon sign. The venue is owned by Venus, and Ava understands that Ryan has taken her directly into a place she wanted to avoid. On a Friday night, the line stretches around the building.

The Inferno’s three levels make it both a restaurant and a nightlife complex. At street level, Purgatory offers candlelit dining, from surf and turf to burgers; upstairs, Heaven is a dance club and bar. At seventeen, Ava cannot enter Heaven, a restriction she welcomes. The restaurant itself is polished but not snooty, and she thinks she would have liked it if it belonged to anyone other than Venus. Her dread is therefore not a reaction to the food or atmosphere, but to whose territory the building represents.

Ava tries to persuade the group to leave with a string of invented complaints about the restaurant being unsanitary. Brittany answers by joking that a bribe might get Ava overlooked. Ryan goes to speak with a bouncer, who at first seems not to be listening. When he recognizes Ava, she silently signals that she does not want to be identified. The bouncer lets them in without drawing attention to her. Ava would rather he had turned the group away, but once Ryan and the others have entered, she feels she cannot leave them unprotected in a Coterie venue they do not know.

Old Friends and an Unwanted Introduction

Inside, the concealment lasts only until the group is seated. Ezra recognizes Ava and lifts her off her feet in an exuberant greeting, calling her affectionate, flamboyant nicknames. Ryan sees the embrace and looks ready to hit someone. Ezra notices his reaction and holds Ava close long enough to make the tension worse. Ava is embarrassed, but also relieved that the other person Ezra might have summoned is Lock.

Lock approaches carrying a serving tray. Ava reads more than simple annoyance in his expression: he is hurt by the company she has chosen, and she feels guilty because she knows him well enough to recognize it. He tells Ezra to let go, kisses Ava chastely on the temple, and draws her close at the waist. In a whisper, he identifies Ryan as the elusive boyfriend and teases Ava about dating a bad boy. The greeting makes the social strain plain: Lock’s concern for Ava is intimate and protective, while Ryan is watching a closeness he does not understand.

Ryan makes the relationship explicit by introducing himself as Ava’s boyfriend and offering his hand. Ezra ignores it, sits beside him, and turns the introduction into flirtatious provocation, grabbing Ryan’s chin and admiring his looks. Lock joins in by teasing Ryan about his eyelashes. The attention embarrasses Ava, and the exchange with Lock becomes prickly enough that she jokingly gestures as though she might set his carefully styled hair alight. Ezra then abruptly changes course. He calls for waiters, asks whether the group is hungry, and announces that their meal is on the house. What is meant to smooth over the awkwardness only makes Ava more anxious: the free meal makes her special treatment harder to explain to her companions, who do not know the place’s connection to her dangerous life.

From the Dance Floor to the Bathroom

Later, Ava goes to check on her companions behind the small Purgatory bar, where Lock and Ezra are working. Ryan drinks another gin and tonic while Ava asks for soda. A waitress brings appetizers; Ava initially tries to refuse, but Ryan urges her to try one. The food makes her mouth feel as though it is burning, and she rapidly drinks her soda. Still feeling the heat, she takes several gulps from Ryan’s drink before realizing it is his, then hands it back. The incident is an accidental taste, not evidence at that point that she knows she has been drugged.

Ryan leads her onto the dance floor. Despite the music and the evening’s tensions, Ava begins to enjoy herself and, for a while, lets the crowd absorb her attention. Dancing beside Ryan makes her feel safe enough to forget Lock’s warnings and the threat she associates with Venus. That sense of safety is temporary. The dancing, smoke, music, and accumulated stress begin to overwhelm her, and she asks Ryan to leave because she feels unwell.

Ryan resists. He says they have only just arrived and argues that Ava is being selfish by trying to end the evening for everyone. She tries to hold back an angry response and the impulse to use her fire, then draws him close and explains that the night will be less enjoyable if she passes out on the floor. He reluctantly takes her to Brittany and Jeff. Brittany barely looks at Ava; occupied with Jeff, she suggests that Ava find a ride from one of the men downstairs or lie down on a couch in the ladies’ room. Ava waits for Ryan to object, but he does not. She decides that leaving her companions alone is not an option, particularly when they do not realize they are in a Coterie bar, and heads toward the restroom.

Outside it, the room begins to tilt. Ava tries to text Lock or Ezra, or call Cade, but cannot manage her phone. Lock finds her and takes her into the bathroom, where she vomits into a garbage can and onto the surrounding area. He settles her on a settee and holds her as she grows hot and exhausted. When he sees how badly affected she is, he wakes her, then carries her out. Ava keeps asking after Ryan and says she has to make sure he is all right; Lock tells her that Ryan and the others have already left and that he is getting her away from The Inferno.

Recognition and Aftermath

As Lock carries her through the smoke, lights, and pounding music, Ava struggles to stay conscious. Her behavior is unlike her usual self: she giggles, makes a joke about Ryan thinking she and Lock are sleeping together, and tries to sit up in Lock’s arms. Lock tightens his hold even when she bats at his chin and calls him pretty. The combination of her confusion and his effort to keep her safe marks the evening’s turn from social discomfort to an emergency.

The next several hours remain a blur. Someone shines a light into Ava’s eyes; Ezra and Lock make her drink something that tastes like rotten leaves; and she vomits again in a back room. Lock eventually tucks her onto a couch. In her final hazy memory, she pats his head, giggles at his spiky hair, and may call him a hedgehog before passing out. The following morning, Ezra wakes her by splashing her with the last of a bottle of cold water, and Lock gives her another bottle to drink.

Lock explains that while Ava was unconscious and vomiting, Owen came to The Inferno because Venus wanted to speak with her. Owen’s presence surprises neither him nor Ezra, despite their shifts having ended and Ava’s friends having gone. Lock wonders aloud whether the group was set up; Ava doubts that Venus could have planned around her getting drunk, since she does not drink. She says she accidentally had some of Ryan’s gin and tonic. Lock rejects that as an adequate explanation: even two drinks would not have affected her this way, so someone must have slipped her something. Ava can identify several people who were near the drink—Ryan, the bartender, and possibly members of the waitstaff—but cannot establish who did it.

The event ends with suspicion rather than a solved attack. Ava’s collapse is recognized as drugging, and Owen’s arrival while she is incapacitated makes the timing feel less accidental. Yet the available evidence does not reveal who administered the drug or prove that Venus arranged it. The episode’s central reversal is the gap between Ava’s brief experience of the dance floor as a refuge and the vulnerability that overtakes her inside a venue already associated with the Coterie.