The first thing Sannah remembered when she woke up was her happiness. She was cold, and shifted on the blanket to bury herself into Saint. He wasn't there. He was gone.

She sat up, looking around, wild eyed. The warehouse was empty. The blinds were open on a small high window, and weak sunlight filtered in.

"Saint?" she said, uncertainly. The cavernous room echoed his absence back to her. She pulled on her clothes as quickly as she could, her breath jagged, and searched for some sign of him. There was no note, nothing. No sign of his existence.

What had she done? Fear and dread curdled in Sannah's stomach. She touched herself gently between the legs. She felt delicate and inflamed. She'd slept with him, and it was wonderful, but also terrible. He was in her now, tied around her guts, soaking her brain, saturating her flesh. Her tang for him was more powerful than she was, by an order of magnitude. She was just a conduit for her feeling for Saint. She felt like she was caught in the current of a fast-flowing river.

She couldn't escape. But it was wrong, all wrong, and she wanted to. This was bad. She was bad. Everything Lox had accused her of was true now, even if it wasn't true then, and timing didn't matter, not really.

She'd left the Metropol early to find Saint, when if she stayed she could have made all her digits and even been on her way to Judit already. She'd thrown herself at him. She'd spent all night coming on to different men, getting naked, tanging them up, then just given herself, begging, to some tilted stranger. She was a selfish sluttish bedswerver, just like her mum. She couldn't escape it. It was who she was. And it was him, him, that brought it all out.

A parade of unwelcome thoughts marched sombre in Sannah's mind. He does this. You're not different, so don't think you are. Feona, Carin. A threesome. A monster in bed. Screaming behind a bin.

The images became more random, but the emotion was the same, all mixed up, all as one. Her mum, her mum's many boyfriends. The Devil, his silky bed, on her trip to the chang house. The eyes of that girl in his room. Saint, the one who took her there. Saint, seeming like the Devil when she was under the chang. He was a demon, his name was a lie. He'd done this to her. Led her astray.

He's only ever spoken to me when he's tilted, Sannah realised. His meagre, piecemeal companionship only ever granted when he was out of his mind. The rest of the time he acted like she didn't exist. She'd thrown herself at him last night, without him ever giving any indication at all that he had feelings for her. Of course he hadn't pushed her away, what man would say no to a no-strings rub when it's handed to him on a plate?

She'd thought she felt a connection to his art—but that was meaningless. Just because it meant something to her, why would that mean she meant something to him? All that crank fancy about moths and hearts and fate was wild imagination, nothing but coincidence. Her 'love' was based on a mirage, the delusions of loneliness and cabin-fever. It was an illness, out of control.

Sannah thought about Dierdra's words, God knows what she's got, and felt sick. The fact he'd slept with Rade, with skit-knows who else. Her first time, and so squalid: a quick rub in a derelict building with a bedswerving chang-head. He had used a condom—no thanks to me, Sannah chastised herself bitterly, I would have done it without—but still. The seediness of her life now, of who she was, disgusted her.

What was she going to do? She couldn't go back to the flat. She couldn't see him there, with his horrific friends. But where else could she go? She had no-one to help her at all. The only person who'd been even remotely friendly to her was Dierdra.

Could she? She thought for a moment. It was a huge imposition, way too much to ask from someone she barely knew. Back at school, Sannah would have rather died than ask one of the other students if she could do something as insignificant as plug into their screen charger.

But I'm a different person now, Sannah thought, and when you're as low as I am, pride is dispensable. She stood up, a dull ache in her thighs and backside, a hollowness in her head.

***

Dierdra's flat was much nicer than Saint's. It had a window, for one thing, even though it only looked out on a brick wall and a fire escape. Despite the limitations of the view, that little bit of natural light imbued the room with calm and soothed Sannah's mind.

The living room where Sannah was sitting was the first room you entered when you came through the door. It was small, painted a warm yellow and there was colourful, unusual artwork all over the walls. It was tidy but cluttered, nearly every surface covered in books. That was weird to see—so old fashioned, and not what you'd expect in the house of an Exotic, a stripper.

Sannah thanked Dierdra gratefully as she passed her a tea from the studio kitchen. She'd got Dierdra's ID from Carter, made up some lie about giving her shoes back, and used the payscreen in the club to emessage her. She got a notification Dierdra had seen it straight away, but it was a tortuous twenty minutes before Dierdra replied and said she could come round. Sannah could read ambivalence in the message, but didn't care, she just wanted somewhere to go.

Dierdra was wearing a black vest and wide trousers. She had no make-up on, which made her look younger and less striking than in the club, and her hair was wrapped in a large, bright pink turban. She sat down opposite Sannah, clearing books off a chair to do so, and looked at her doubtfully.

"Is this something to do with that guy Kismet was talking about?"

Sannah nodded, hugging her tea.

"I was staying at his place. And now... Now I can't. I've got nowhere to go."

Dierdra nodded, her lips thin.

"It won't be long, I promise," Sannah said quickly. "I just need three hundred digits to get a train ticket to Caledia. I've... I've got family there. Then I'll be out of your hair. Thank you so much."

I'm such a parasite, Sannah thought. But I don't care. At least I don't have to see Saint, see Rade. At least I have somewhere to stay.

There was a scratching sound at the door, a key entering the lock, and Sannah looked up to see a man walk in, laden with grocery bags. He was tall, slim and Exotic. Handsome, his hair cut short and neat. He wore a bright green t-shirt with a big black logo on it, and a word that Sannah didn't recognise: Bavida.

He smiled at Sannah warmly, as if he was expecting her and knew who she was. Dumping his grocery bags on the unit separating the kitchen area from the living room, he came toward her smiling, and said, "Hi. Faro."

"Sannah."

"Nice to meet you, Sannah. Welcome to our home." Faro sat on the arm of Deirdra's chair, draping his arm over her back. "How you doing, leman?" He addressed Dierdra now. "How's Stokeley?"

Dierdra still looked unhappy.

"He's napping through there. I got him down just before Sannah arrived."

Sannah wondered who they were talking about. Did Dierdra have a kid? She hadn't expected that at all.

"Perfect," Faro nodded. "Well Sannah, I don't know if you're hungry, but I've just been shopping. I hope you like pie."

He got up and moved to the studio kitchen, watching them over the unit.

"I see you've got tea. I'll just get on and let you girls... chat." The last word had a kind of pointed emphasis, directed at Dierdra.

Dierdra looked annoyed, then nodded.

"It's Faro's fault you're here," she said to Sannah. "I don't usually run with girls from the Metro, not out of the club. Work is work and I don't like to bring it home with me."

Sannah nodded again, feeling guilty. "I understand. I'm sorry, I promise it won't be long."

"What Dierdra meant to say," Faro paused his cooking to gesture with a big knife, "is you're welcome here. Our home is yours." His knife returned to chopping. "So, what's your story, Sannah?"

Sannah shrugged. God, what was she meant to say to a question like that?

"Where are you from?" Faro tried again.

"Birchwood. Southend before that," Sannah said.

"What's your origins?"

"Um... I was born in Southend. My dad's Generic. My mum's Exotic."

"And?" Faro was waving his knife again, a circling motion, trying to get her to go on.

"And that's it."

"You don't know what territory she's from?" Dierdra asked.

Sannah shook her head. "Just that she's Exotic."

"Exotic! That's the whole big world, kin," Faro laughed. "There's a lot out there, once you're off this self-obsessed little militarised island."

Sannah looked down, feeling slightly ashamed of her ignorance. She knew nothing at all except that her mum came to Albia on a migrant boat, when she was a teenager, with some distant uncle that had promptly disappeared.

"Ain't you ever asked her?" Faro said.

"She has a weird relationship with her mum," Dierdra interjected. She must be thinking of the stage name thing, Sannah thought. And she's right.

"We don't really talk," Sannah admitted. "She's... she's in prison." She felt her face flush with embarrassment. What would the think of her?

"Ah, the incarcerated Exotic. That old trope." Faro shook his head sadly, his lip curling.

Sannah bristled, but he was right. That was exactly what people expected of Exotics: jailbird; criminal; thief.

"Yeah," she said defensively. "But I'm not like that. I wanted to go to university–"

"Woah, kin," he cut in. "That's not what I'm sayin'. I'm talking about the way Generic society discriminates against Exotic peoples. Institutionalised racism. Mass incarceration."

Sannah wasn't sure what he meant. Their mum had broken the law, after all. You couldn't really blame that on racism.

"I dunno. I mean, she admitted the charge. She did it."

"Ah, but did she?" Faro stopped grinding pepper to look at Sannah. "I mean with structural determinism, to what extent can you truly say that the individual is responsible for their actions—or reactions—under an oppressive regime? Did you know 40% of the male Exotic population of Albia will be incarcerated at some point in their lives? Forty percent! Did you know that? Why do you think that is?"

Sannah hesitated. Faro had stopped cooking, was looking at her dead on. This wasn't something she felt comfortable even thinking about, never mind talking about.

"Communities and parents..." She said weakly.

"Communities and parents? That old Generic media whitewash dag? You believe that? I'll tell you why. Structural racism, that's why. Young Exotics are given no hopes, no chances in Albian society. We're forced to hustle to survive, and then we're punished for hustling, and told it's all because of our nature, that we ain't capable of anything better. And the real tragedy is that we believe it."

He looked down and ground his pepper vigorously. "How many Exotic friends you got, Sannah?"

"Um, well... I don't really know any other Exotics," Sannah admitted. "There aren't any at my school."

"At your school?" Dierdra's eyebrows shot up. She turned to Faro. "Didn't I tell you?"

"I mean... When I was at school. There weren't any."

Dierdra gave a wry smile that said yeah, right.

"And if you do meet another Exotic, what do you do?" Faro pressed.

Sannah stayed silent.

"Grab your bag and check your money ID ain't missing? Hold that little bit tighter on your boyfriend's arm, so that Exotic bedswerver don't take him away?"

Sannah's neck and cheeks burned. She thought of the bus. She'd sat at the back to keep her distance from the other Exotic teenagers, and then those Generic guys had robbed her. Then the Exotic guy had helped her, and she'd been worried the whole time, like he was a threat.

"This is how it is. If you don't do them things they tell you Exotics do, you tell yourself you're different, not like the others. And if you do do them, you tell yourself it's who you are, your nature.

"That's real power, right there. It's not when they're telling you what to do, it's when they don't have to tell you what to do, 'cause you believe their lies and just do it anyway. You've internalised their discourse, kin! You need to educate yourself."

Faro was pointing the pepper grinder at Sannah. A high, alarmed cry came from the next room, and Faro and Deirdra both looked up sharply.

"I'll go." Faro moved from behind the counter, wiping his hands on a towel.

"Yeah, you need to calm down," Dierdra said, affectionately. "Faro's a scholar," she went on to Sannah after he had left. "He's the smartest guy I know. He's passionate about all this stuff. And he's right, you know, too."

"Does he work in a university?" Sannah asked.

Dierdra laughed. "It ain't that easy, kin. He writes online. He's got a few essays published, through a radical publishers, but it don't really pay. It's hard for them, the guys. Harder than for us. People think they know what an Exotic man is... Getting a job, it's just impossible. We got more options, you know, the dancing and that."

Dierdra paused, turning in her chair, running her fingers along the bookshelf. She pulled out a thin volume and passed it to Sannah.

"Here, Faro's latest essay is in there. You can keep that, we have a few copies. We're lucky, really," she went on, "'cos I can make enough at work to support all of us, and Faro can stay home with Stokeley. Hey, my baby! How's my leman doing?"

She was looking at the door, her arms outstretched, as Faro returned, a sleepy looking toddler clutching him with one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. The little boy ran to Dierdra and nuzzled between her legs, tiny chubby arms around her, and turned to eye Sannah suspiciously.

"This is Sannah," Faro said. "Say hello."

The little boy buried his head into his mum's belly and began to cry. He can tell I'm a bad person, Sannah thought.

"Aw, leman, come on. You still tired? I'll take you back through."

Dierdra stood up, holding the boy tight, her voice soft and loving. It gave Sannah a pang of misery, of loneliness, of nostalgia for her own lost mother, when Sannah was tiny, before all the mess. She blinked to avoid crying.

Faro sat next to her, and said, "You should forgive her, you know." His voice was quiet. How had he guessed what she was thinking about? "You gotta think about what she might have been going through."

The insistent cry of the baby rose in the other room, and Faro stood up, giving Sannah a slight squeeze on the shoulder as he left.

Sannah rubbed her fingertips over the edge of the book Dierdra had given her, the pages fanning gently. She had a lot to take in. She was glad to be alone with her thoughts.