"Get out!" Cathy's voice rose to a sharp pitch that made my teeth ache. "Please wake up, Roma, wake up!"
I winced and tried to roll over, but something was pinning me down. Or was it pulling me up? I couldn't tell. "What the—?"
"Andromeda! You're in danger." She yanked at my arm, trying to pull me up. "We have to leave, now!"
I finally managed to sit up, though my head still felt like something was hammering it. "What's going on? What happened?"
"I don't know, I came home and you were passed out. There's some kind of monster here, standing over you." She gestured wildly, and her voice was as panicked as I'd ever heard it. Given Cathy grinned through white water rafting and enjoyed skydiving, this meant a response was required. I looked through squinted eyes to see Bran in the corner covering his ears, which was comical considering how gigantic he was.
"He's with me, Cathy. He helped me." I tried to stand and wobbled on my feet. Bran was by my side in an instant, wrapping an arm around me to steady me.
"What did he do to you?" she accused, rounding on him. "Ten seconds ago, he had gray skin, and his ears... and eyes." She shuddered. "He's not human, Roma, come on." She tugged on my arm again, still looking at Bran like he was going to stew her and eat her.
"I didn't do anything!" he protested. "I got here, saw she was very ill, and called my friend, who is a paramedic. He's on his way." He shrugged. "I don't know what she's talking about with the ears and stuff."
Pain nearly made me vomit as I leaned forward and grabbed my head. "Stop yelling," I muttered. "And there was no need for calling an ambulance. I have a migraine, but I'm not ill." I waved toward Bran. "Cathy, he's clearly not some wild monster about to kill us both. Calm down. The dim lighting must've played tricks on your eyes."
"Sorry." Cathy softened her voice as she sat next to me on the bed, still gripping my arm. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"
I shook my head as memories started flooding back. Franklin. That absolute slimeball. I'd thought he was bad before, but it was so much worse than I'd thought. Something had happened and now I remembered everything. All those meetings with Eldora. They'd been messing with my head every time. These awful migraines were their fault. Whatever they'd been doing to me had caused them.
More memories trickled through my pounding head, memories of... magic? Oh, my—I didn't have words.
Cathy had been talking all the time I'd been realizing something horrible had been going on. "What?" I said groggily, interrupting her. "Listen, I'm sorry. Cathy, Bran is nice. He's not going to hurt me. Why don't you go on home? I'll wait for his paramedic friend and let them check me over, just to be safe, okay?"
Someone knocked on the door just then, so quietly I barely heard it, but Bran's head swiveled a few seconds before the knock. Had he heard it? Must've. He rushed from the room and returned a few moments later with a man in a paramedic uniform. He wasn't very big, but had an absolutely beautiful face. He limped, but from the bed I couldn't see why. A second man in uniform peeked into the room behind them. This man couldn't have been more different from the first. He was enormous, possibly bigger than Bran, and even peeking in he filled up the door frame.
My home was a freaking circus.
"Andromeda, this is Harry and Christian. Let them have a look at you, okay?" As he spoke, he walked around the bed and held his hand out to Cathy. "I promise I'll take good care of her."
"But," Cathy said weakly, then swallowed as she looked around the room. "Your face."
"I promise, the last thing in this world I want is to hurt Andromeda." Bran spoke gently and put his hand on her shoulders. "We'll help her, then we'll go."
Cathy hesitated another moment, then nodded and let Bran lead her from the room. Their murmuring voices got quieter as they moved further away from my bedroom.
"Let's take a look at you, Andromeda," the smaller man, Harry, said as he came to sit on the edge of the bed. "I'm a, well, you'd call me a healer, and Christian here is my assistant. We're here to help you."
That was a novel way to put it. Maybe the city had changed the guidelines for EMTs to make them feel friendlier. I nodded and tried to brace myself up a bit so he could check me over, but a wave of nausea made me sink back down. "What's wrong with me?" I asked weakly. "I feel awful."
"You'll be fine in just a moment. Lay back."
Doing as he said, I settled back on my pillow and relaxed while he touched my head, then my stomach, and then my head again. Warmth surged through me and just like that, my headache disappeared. Harry sat back with a satisfied grin. "There, all better?"
"What did you do?" I asked, sitting up slowly.
"Healed you," Harry said. "It's what I do."
I frowned and put my hand to my head. There was no pain, no throbbing, nothing. It was as if I'd never had a headache in my life. "But, how?"
"With magic, of course."
Magic. Holy... I pushed away from Harry, launching myself out of bed and belatedly realizing Bran had come back in. How long had I been lying there, letting a strange magicman heal me?
Now that the pain was gone, memories flooded in. "Franklin," I snarled and walked out of my bedroom. My brother in law was a dead man walking when I got my hands on him. I needed something to drink. Maybe something very strong. Storming down the hall, I bit back a scream of frustration and anger. All this time, I thought I had debilitating migraines. "And Eldora!" I slammed a mug onto the counter so hard it shattered.
"Andromeda," Bran said quietly from behind me. "It's okay. We're here to help you."
