Page 103 of Rumi: The Hawthornes

Guilt warred with relief inside me. I’d been so afraid for so long, and I’d missed Rumi so much, and now the danger was past, and he was lying next to me, and the two situations started to blur in my mind.

“I don’t know,” Rumi said, pressing his lips to my forehead again. “I think he was sick, sugar.”

“I thought he was going to kill Bird,” I whispered, closing my eyes as flashes of Pop standing over my sweet baby brother flashed through my mind.

“He almost killedyou,” Rumi said with a shudder.

“But, he loved us, though,” I said in confusion.

“He did.”

“How could he hurt us when he loves us?”

“I don’t know, sugar. I don’t understand it either.”

“Have you heard anything about Nana?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

“She’s still at the police station,” Rumi replied, leaning back to look at me. “Don’t worry. The club will handle it.”

“Why?” I asked dully. “She shot a member. Shouldn’t they be on his side?”

“He was beating the hell out of his grandchildren,” Rumi replied firmly. “She had every right to do what she did.”

His expression didn’t change, and neither did his tone, but as I looked into his eyes, I knew.

“She killed him,” I said, a wave of sorrow hitting me so hard that if I hadn’t been lying down already, I would’ve collapsed. It wasn’t a question. I knew.

I’d heard Pop asking for us while he was lying on the floor in the trailer. Over and over again, he’d asked for me and Bird by name and over and over, Nana had told him that we were okay. No one had looked at me to reassure him. No one had even considered that a possibility as I’d sat on the couch holding Bird’s head.

But maybe they should’ve, because now he was dead.

“Hey,” Rumi said, tilting his head a little so we were nose-to-nose. “What’s goin’ on in that head?”

“Nana must be completely destroyed,” I choked out. “She loved him.”

“She did what she had to,” Rumi said, staring into my eyes. “And so did you.”

“He was asking for me,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut in pain. “He was asking for me, and I ignored him.”

“Jesus, Nova,” Rumi murmured, his voice thick. “He nearly killed you.”

“But he wasdying.”

“Nova,” Rumi said sternly, waiting for me to open my eyes again. “You didn’t do anythin’ wrong, sugar. Not a fuckin’ thing.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to live with that,” I whispered. “How do I live with that?”

“Nova,” Brenna said from the end of my bed, startling both me and Rumi. I had no idea when she’d come in.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been where you are,” she said softly, wrapping her hand around my foot. “Put in the hospital by someone who was supposed to love me—not Dragon. He’d never,” she clarified when she noticed the look on my face.

“I’m also a parent and a grandparent, yeah?”

I nodded.

“If I’d lost it and hurt—” Her voice hitched. “And hurt one of my kids or grandkids so bad that to stop me, the love of my life had to shoot me?” She shook her head. “Honey, it would tear Samson apart to think that you felt guilty for a single second of this. Okay?”

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