Their eyes met again, and Tyler remembered his broken nose, too, his bloody mess of a face. The driver turned and reached into the back seat. Tyler’s defenses spiked—Should I react?—and then, a few seconds later, the driver came back with a navy-blue hoodie. He handed it across the seat. A set of syllables occurred to Tyler, a name: Cameron—Kevin—Connor—Collin. Collin. Of course. He had known Collin since middle school. He knew David’s basement, too.

“Keep it,” he said. “It’s clean.”

Tyler bunched the sweatshirt in his lap, caught the scent of detergent.

“Whatever you’re carrying, you don’t have to hold on to it,” Collin said. “You can let it go.” He paused. “You can let yourself breathe.”

He didn’t realize he hadn’t been. Tyler nodded to him, letting a breath out slowly, and finally he pushed the car door open, and in what felt like an entirely unrelated, draining set of motions pulled himself out of the car. He wrung the hoodie in his hands like it was a task he’d been given. He felt the wound in his shoulder break open again, a line of coldness inch back down his arm. He took a few faltering steps across the parking lot before he felt the driver at his back, an arm out to guide him. He hadn’t heard him get out of the car.

He had been brought to a church, or a place that was like a church. He caught the message board as he stepped up to the sidewalk, HOLY BLOOD COMMUNITY CENTER, but he couldn’t lift his head enough to see if there was a steeple. Tyler couldn’t remember the last time he had been to a church—not since his infancy at least, if ever—though the building reminded him less of a church than of the VFW hall in Owl Creek where he and Rhea had used to go to hardcore shows. He noticed a string of little American flags along the sidewalk. Was it a church? A warm glow came through the glass doors, there was a light on somewhere deeper inside. He limped toward the glass doors, the driver behind him, not touching, but present, and the walking was unfamiliar, like a skill he’d let atrophy over months, that he’d failed to keep up, but eventually he reached them. The driver pulled open one of the doors and they stepped inside.