Anne nodded, broke away from the gawking group and stumbled off to find help. Sasha looked back to Susannah. She coaxed the other girl to sit down against the wall and sat down next to her, applying pressure to her hand the entire time. Sasha’s shirt was now soaked through with hot, sticky blood. Her hands were wet too. But she didn’t feel squeamish about this. She’d expected to after her reaction to the hangings, but somehow the sight of all this blood actually calmed her. She knew what to do here. It felt good to take effective action.

The Martyrs arrived a minute or so later, with a medic close behind. By that point Susannah’s bleeding had stopped entirely. The medic was impressed, and he said so.

“Do you have some kind of training, ma’am? You handled this very well.”

“Three semesters of pre-med,” she’d answered. “It was only high school pre-med but they made us do a lot of first-aid drills.”

The medic gave her a significant look and then asked, “What’s your name, miss?”

“Sasha Mar–”, she started before correcting herself. “Sasha.”

Susannah was taken off to whatever served as a hospital for the Heavenly Kingdom while Sasha and the rest of the girls finished their work day. It was uneventful after that, but the other girl’s attitudes toward her seemed to have shifted. Anne had given her a big hug, of course. But everyone was more respectful. Several of them came to her to ask minor things, advice on how best to clean a room or clear a pile of rubble. At one point Sasha had divided four girls up into two teams to remove a huge amount of shattered glass. While she’d directed the effort Mae had walked by the room and butted her head in.

“Just because she knows a little first aid doesn’t make her a foreman,” she sneered.

The other girls didn’t pay Mae any mind. They left for the day at the usual time and arrived back at the House of Miriam in the early evening. Helen was waiting for them at the door. Behind her stood an older man in a white lab coat. He had a cross pinned to his lapel and a larger red cross on his armband. As the girls all filed into the building Sasha saw Helen point to her and whisper something to the man. He nodded.

“Miss Sasha?” he called out as she headed to her seat at the dinner table. Sasha peeled off and approached him. Helen stood nearby, distant enough to make it clear this conversation was between her and the man, but close enough that her presence provided a warm kernel of certainty and support.

“Yes?” Sasha asked.