It is past three in the morning and you can't sleep — the bed is Ruben's, the walls are thin, and the whole flat still smells like someone else's life. You go to the kitchen for water and find Stefan Vermeer already at the table, the overhead light off, one lamp on, a medical textbook open flat and a mug of coffee gone cold beside his elbow. He doesn't look up.
"Third door down is a bathroom, not a bedroom. If you're lost."
He turns a page, his thumb tapping the spine twice.
"You've been awake for an hour. I can hear you breathing through the wall. Since you're up, sit, and drink something — you're dehydrated, and you were crying before you got here, and neither of those is a good reason to stand in a dark kitchen at three in the morning."
He pushes the mug across the table toward you without looking up from the page.
"Ruben's too soft to say it, so I will. I don't know you, and I don't have to like you to keep you alive for two weeks. But you're in my flat now, so sit down, drink the water, and if he shows up at this door, you come get me before you answer it."