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And then there she was, sitting on the couch with Bird’s head in her lap, her eyes vacant. I scanned the room and stopped in shock when I finally saw what the boys had been surrounding.
Samson lay on the floor with Ash near his head, whispering to him as Uncle Casper and Leo tried to stop the bleeding. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from but the entire front of his T-shirt was covered in blood and it was pooling beneath him.
“Where’s my Nova?” Samson asked, his eyes wild. “Where’s Bird? Is Bird okay?”
“They’re okay, baby,” Ash replied, smoothing his hair away from his face. “They’re okay.”
“Okay.” Then less than a second later, he was asking for his grandchildren again.
I looked over at Nova. She hadn’t reacted at all.
“Let ’em through,” Dragon ordered, waving us away from the door so the paramedics could get past us.
“Everybody out,” a policeman ordered, coming in behind them. “Give them some room.”
If the situation would’ve been different, I would’ve laughed at the way the members who had bucked authority all their lives meekly followed the policeman’s instructions. Instead of heading out the door, I used the now-empty space to get to Nova.
“Hey, Rum,” she said to me, her voice sweet and kind of dazed as I kneeled down in front of her.
“Hey, sugar,” I said, willing myself not to show any of the emotion I was feeling.
When I’d come through the door and saw that she was sitting up, I’d been just relieved that she was alive and then gotten distracted by the tableau happening on the floor across the room. Now that I could see her up close, I had to force myself not to weep.
The hair near her forehead was bloody and patchy like it had been torn out. The black eye I’d seen, but the long scratch down her cheek was new and so was the mottled swelling along her jaw and the fat lip. There was another scratch on her neck and her T-shirt neckband was so stretched out that it hung halfway off her shoulder.
“You okay?” I asked, my hands hovering over her. I wasn’t sure where it was safe to touch her.
“I’m fine,” she said, giving me a weak smile. Her lip started to bleed, and she used the bottom of her T-shirt to wipe it. By the state of her T-shirt, she’d had to wipe her lip more than a few times.
“What about you?” I asked, meeting Bird’s eyes. The entire right side of his face was swollen.
“Been better,” he mumbled.
“Hi, I’m Daryl,” a kind voice said from behind my shoulder. “How about I take a look at the two of you?”
“We’re fine,” Nova said, smoothing her hand over Bird’s hair. “Please help my grandfather.”
“I’ve got two people helping your grandfather,” Daryl said, tapping me on the shoulder so I’d shift out of his way. “He’s in good hands.”
“What’s your name?” Daryl asked Bird, leaning down to look in his eyes. And just like that, I was impressed with the guy. Nova was clearly the worse off of the two but he’d known that he’d get nowhere with her unless he checked out Bird first. Smart.
“Firebird.”
“Your name is Firebird?” Daryl asked in surprise.
“Yeah.”
“Damn, that’s a cool name.”
“Could’ve been worse,” I whispered, my eyes on Nova. “He could’ve been named Trans Am.”
The almost-smile she gave me was more for my benefit than hers as she helped Bird sit back up.
He swayed in his seat.
“Alright, Firebird, can you tell me what happened?”
“Just Bird.”
