Sully put one of Eli's arms around his neck and walked him three blocks west through the snow.
Behind an abandoned theater on Ninth, a small fire burned inside a steel drum.
A tarp had been strung between two walls to create a lean-to.
Another man sat there.
An older Black man on a milk crate, holding his hands toward the fire.
"This is the boy," the second man said.
"This is him," Sully answered.
"Levon, get the blankets."
Levon brought two army-surplus wool blankets.
Threadbare.
But dry.
The old men wrapped Eli in them.
They sat him close enough to the fire to warm gradually.
Sully pressed a tin cup of hot coffee into his frozen hands.
"Drink it slow."
"Don't gulp."
"Slow."
Eli drank slowly.
The warmth moving down his throat was the most beautiful thing he had ever felt.
He began to cry.
He made no sound.
The tears simply ran down his face.
Sully and Levon pretended not to notice.
"Kid," Sully said after a while. "Listen to me."
"Word is out about you."
"The bikers are looking for you all over the city."
Eli's head snapped up.
His face went pale.
"No."
"No, listen," Sully said quickly, holding up a hand.
"They're not looking for you to hurt you."
"The word is they're looking for you to thank you."
"Something about a woman you helped last night."
"They're looking everywhere."
Eli stared at him.
The words did not arrange themselves into meaning.
"They're not going to hurt me?"
"They're not going to hurt you, son."
"They're looking for you to take you in."
Eli began to shake.
Not from the cold this time.
Something else.
Something that had been wound tight inside him for two years and was not used to being given permission to loosen.
"I can't," he said. "I can't go with them."
"I can't go anywhere."
"They're going to put me back in foster."
"They're going to put me back."
Sully looked at Levon.
Levon looked at Sully.
They had the look of two old men who had known enough of the system themselves to understand exactly what the boy feared.
"Kid," Sully said gently. "You're going to freeze if you stay out here."
"Your body's shutting down."
"You're not going to make it through another night like this."
"Do you understand me?"
"I can't."
"Listen to me."
"The president of that club is named Beau Whitlock."
"I've known of him for 30 years."
"And his wife, the woman you saved, runs the free clinic on the east side."
"She's patched up half the people in this camp at one point or another, including me."
"She's the closest thing to a saint this city has got."
"They're not going to hurt you."
"They're going to take care of you."
"I'd stake my life on it."
Eli kept shaking his head.
"I have to go."
"I have to get away."