Church, this time, included people who had never been allowed inside it before.
Dutch led them — not into the closed room at the back of the barn where full patch members alone convened, but out across the gravel yard to a smaller building Wren hadn't noticed on arrival, a converted equipment shed with a single steel door and, she realized as Dutch produced a key rather than simply pushing it open, a lock that suggested whatever was inside mattered enough to be kept from casual discovery.
Cruz hadn't let go of her hand since the barn. His grip had gone from grounding to something closer to desperate, knuckles white, and Wren understood without being told that he wasn't holding onto her so much as holding onto the last solid thing in a world that had just come apart beneath him.
Inside,
