Page 136 of The Forgotten Queen
“When did the headaches start?”
That was an easy answer. “When I stopped taking the drug Doctor Von gave me.”
“Are the headaches the only side effects you’ve had?” Doctor Ames asked.
“Yes,” she nodded. “They aren’t always this intense. I think I’ve only blacked out one or two other times. But there have been other times when the pain has been so significant that I’ve thrown up.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” her father asked.
She shrugged. She didn’t need another reason for people to think she was weak.
“Can you make her headaches stop?” her father asked the doctor.
Ames straightened. “I don’t know. Von’s drug is untested. She’s the first person it’s ever been used on. I’ll have to monitor her. Track her progress. Run some tests. But I think the headaches will lessen and maybe even go away once the drug has fully worked its way out of her. Right now, her body is going through withdrawals, and that’s probably what’s causing the headaches.”
“So you think they’ll go away in a few weeks?” her father clarified.
Doctor Ames shrugged. “There’s no telling what kind of neurological damage her brain has experienced from Doctor Von’s drug, but I’m hopeful that after some time, she’ll be back to normal.”
Not normal.
Without Marx, Seran doubted she’d ever feel normal again.
45
Seran
Seran spent the next day in bed. She’d been overly tired since the intense headache, and she’d experienced several smaller ones, like aftershocks to an earthquake.
She lay with her eyes closed, trying to sleep, when a soft knock rattled her bedroom door.
“Come in,” she said.
Her father peeked his head inside. “Are you up for some visitors?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, sitting up in bed. Her father wouldn’t have disturbed her unless he thought it was important.
He smiled, opening the door a little wider.
Seran’s eyes immediately went to Ezra’s dark curly hair, and then she saw Renna. Her blonde hair was pinned up on the sides, the rest of it flowing down over her shoulders to her protruding belly.
She was pregnant.
The thought made Seran sad.
Not because Renna was married to Ezra and having his baby, but because it made her miss Marx and everything that she’d never be able to have with him.
They both hesitated by the door.
“You don’t have to stand by the door. You can come in,” she said.
Renna smiled with relief, walking into the room first. Her green eyes were filled with tears. “I’m so happy to see you.”
“It’s a little weird,” Ezra said, with a giant smile, “but really good.”
Seran remembered that mischievous smile—he was no longer faceless in her mind now that the gaps had filled in.
“Trev, we talked about how you weren’t going to say anything awkward,” Renna said, nudging him on the side.
