Heloise sucked the water into her mouth, swallowed, and made a face.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

She nodded and tried to sit up in bed. “What happened?”

“Let’s just ring the bell first,” Martin said, and pulled the cord over her bed. “I just want the doctor to check on you.”

“How did I end up here?” she asked. “Where’s the man, the guy who attacked me?”

Martin gently shushed her and carefully ran his hand over her hair.

“You don’t need to worry about him anymore,” he said. “The police arrested him. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Heloise reached for his hand. His knuckles were red, torn up.

“What happened to you?”

Before he had a chance to respond, the door to the room opened and Gerda came in. Heloise could see that she had been crying. Her cheeks were red and puffy, her eyelids swollen from crying. Tears started seeping out again as soon as she saw Heloise.

“You’re awake!” she exclaimed in relief, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Heloise let go of Martin’s hand and took Gerda’s. “How did you know I was here?”

“Martin called and told me what happened.”

“But how …?” Heloise looked over at him.

“There’s not that many people in the military named Gerda, so …” He smiled fleetingly.

Gerda started sobbing and crying profusely, and the words tumbled out of her in half sentences.

“You were … And I didn’t think that I would … What if you’d been …”

She leaned over close to Heloise and sobbed like a little kid. Heloise put an arm around her and held her close, but she couldn’t cry herself. She felt parched and hollow inside.

“Who was he?” she asked Martin, once Gerda had calmed down again. “What happened?”

“I don’t know his name, but the police are going to come talk to you about it.”

“How did you know I was here?” she asked Martin.

He and Gerda exchanged a look, and he was about to respond when the door to the room opened again. An older woman walked in wearing white scrubs, a stethoscope hanging like a piece of oversized jewelry around her neck.

“Ah, you’re awake,” she said, just as Gerda had. She smiled with professional, distanced empathy.

She walked over to the edge of the bed, coming close to Heloise’s face. She pulled something that looked like a pen out of her pocket, clicked the top of it, and shone a light into Heloise’s eyes with the pen.

“Can you tell me your full name and date of birth?”

Heloise did as she was asked.

“And where do you live, Heloise?”

“Olfert Fischers Gade in Copenhagen.”

“Do you know where you are?”

Heloise looked over at the window and saw the green lawns of Fælled Park outside.

“Copenhagen City Hospital?”