Chapter 1

• It was hot... so hot, that the child in front of me couldn't breathe. Every time she took a breath, it burned in her throat. I heard her coughing, as she tried to crawl to the nearest window in the room. It all seemed so far away, but I stood next to her and watched everything. The house in flames, the corpse of a man and her desperation, as the little child smashed the window with her last ounce of strength.
• Even though she lived on the third floor and there was no one to help her, she jumped.
• Pain, screams… tears.
• She held her shoulder, while her hand was covered in blood. There were shards everywhere in the open wounds. Nevertheless, she breathed a sigh of relief as her lungs were flooded with fresh air.
• Change of scene... as if a hand was tugging at me. Images of time raced past me, like barely recognisable shards of light, to a small dojo in Japan surrounded by blossoming cherry trees. An old man with three swords, wearing a kimono he had worn many times before, was training a young girl. She had escaped the flames and grown into a teenager. Every day she trained with her grandfather to perfection... because that was all that mattered - perfection. A glove on her right hand, she held two wooden swords and trained. Again and again and again. She never managed to please him. There was hatred in his eyes and after she repeated it the 100th time, he grabbed a bamboo stick and hit her on the back, until red spots appeared on her training shirts.
• Screams and angry curses accompanied my awakening. Bathed in sweat and my heart racing, because of this nightmare. They weren't as bad as tonight every night, but they were always there in the end. I shook myself and finally struggled to get up. It was still too early for work, but too late to go back to sleep. I went into the garden and practiced simple movements with two wooden swords to stay in shape - at least a little, until my muscles stopped twitching and my nerves were calmed. Only then could I shower and get changed. My purple Chanel blouse was from a time when life was better to me. The black pencil skirt had already been sewn by me once. I hadn't liked looking in the mirror for a long time. My appearance was different... and that often made it so damn difficult in this society.
• My hair was long and blonde, almost white in the sunlight. My eyes were a light blue colour. The shape of my eyes was clearly Asian. I was small, but well-trained. A mixture of nations radiated from me. My father was Japanese, my mother British, with a German grandmother, from whom I must have got my blonde hair. My household was multicultural and multilingual, but also so far from normal, so that there was no place or real home for me anywhere, after my parents died.
• I grabbed my coat and umbrella, put on my leather gloves and left the house. The vibrant streets of London surrounded me with a babble of voices and a variety of smells, including the bad ones. It took me a moment to get to my destination with the underground.
• From the outside, it looked like an old industrial building from the industrial days of London in red-brick glory. However, inside was kind of an emergency hospital. Set up by a Red Cross foundation and financed by donations, mainly from the royal family, we looked after everyone. No health insurance, no residence permit, not really wanted by society - come to us. From the unemployed to asylum seekers or the homeless, we cared for everyone, who could not afford a normal doctor's practice or hospital.
• Anyone, who sees me, would say I don't belong here. I was actually a doctor with top grades from university and was courted by the most prestigious clinics in the United Kingdom. But that was all taken away from me. Nobody here was interested in me, as long as I came to work. Thanks to my sleep problems, I passionately took on the late and night shifts, where hardly anyone asked questions anyway and you always had the same colleagues. In the end, I fitted in perfectly with those, who visited us.
• My name badge was hanging on my coat - Dr. Selena Darvis - and as soon as I'd fixed it up, the work began. Today was going to be another one of those days... starting with homeless people with alcohol problems, followed by the junkies. I tended to cuts, bruises and, and, and. Things calmed down a bit after 11pm. Not surprising for a Monday. I finished my reports and waited. At some point after midnight, Louise pushed a young woman in a portable bed into the room, unconscious. I put on a new pair of rubber gloves and examined her calmly, but there was nothing visible on the outside. No wounds, no signs of injury, no bruises. Even a brief intimate examination revealed nothing to indicate physical injury or rape. Just a sleeping woman with orange-red hair in a red dress. So why was she here?
• "Louise, who is our red-haired princess here?"
• "I'm afraid I don't know that either, Selena. She came in with some handsome man in a suit. Maybe he knows more. He said she just fainted."
• "Hmm, she doesn't look like a courtesan to me."
• "A what?"
• "A prostitute, Louise. Read a bit more, it might broaden your horizons."
• Louise laughed, her 80s curly hairstyle shaking as she left the room. I examined the woman again and could find absolutely nothing to explain her condition. There wasn't even a stain on her red dress. So I had to ask her boyfriend. I left the treatment room and looked for the only person wearing a suit in the hall - ahhh - I found him.
• "Is the red-haired Sleeping Beauty yours?"
• "What?"
• The man turned to me and for a moment, the world around me seemed to stand still. A pair of deep brown eyes, flecked with gold, sparkled at me. I took a step back and scrutinized the man, just as he seemed to be checking me out. He was tall and apparently well-trained, judging by the bulges in his perfect silver-grey suit. He had very long black hair, longer than many women out there have. The beginnings of a dark three- day beard played around his square chin. He looked good and for a moment I wondered, what this man was doing here in this part of town... he was clearly too good for this place. I shook myself and thought again of the woman on my examination bed.
• "I was told you brought the red-haired patient to us. Do you know why she fainted, sir?"
• "No. We hugged and the next minute she was in my arms and stopped responding to me.”
• "Ok... do you have a name or any other information about her?"
• "Unfortunately not, but I think she introduced herself as Eva."
• "Eva...? Ok, thank you for your help."
• I looked up from my notepad and stopped writing. So he didn't know her, maybe she was a prostitute after all. I turned around and returned to my treatment room. The door closed softly behind me, while the stranger was still sleeping relaxed.
• "What's your name, Doctor?"
• I jumped up from my chair and turned around to the strange man in the suit standing in the middle of my treatment room.
• How had he got in here?