"Yeah." Sannah said, a wide smile breaking onto her face. "Yeah, if I'm invited."

Saint nodded and turned towards the table, looking at his screen for a few seconds before putting it in his pocket, taking the chang and the lighter from the arm of the sofa.

"Let's go."

"Hang on. I'll just..."

Sannah had a headrush as she stood up. She grabbed her coat from the corner where she had folded it away. She felt like she should have a purse too, money and a screen, but she had neither. It didn't matter. They were going out. Moths into the night. She couldn't see straight to fasten her coat, but her hands did it automatically without the help of her eyes.

She followed him out of the door, her heart beating therumtherumtherum with excitement. She almost fainted as they passed from the harsh light of the corridor into the gloomy street.

Outside! The air felt blissfully cool and alive on her face, the space expansive around her. A tremor ran through her body, heightening her tilt. The floor was far away, like she was ten metres tall.

They moved quickly, Saint just ahead of her, his hands thrust into his pockets and shoulders hunched. She didn't recognise any of the streets, but wasn't sure if this was because they were really unfamiliar or because of her tilted state. Everywhere seemed magical and golden under the electric lights, preternaturally still.

She wondered if she should have her head covered, hair disguised, in case of drones. But the wind was playing with her curls and the air felt so good around her face, so she didn't. She felt like she were still indoors, moving through the night. Not constricted and cramped, like in the small room, but comfortable. Safe. A feeling of home.

"You ok?" Saint turned towards her, still walking.

"Yep." She nodded. "It's so good to be out."

She didn't care where they were going, it was just good to be going somewhere.

"I've got to do something," Saint said. "But before..."

He pulled up short. He looked both ways, up and down the empty street, then turned down a narrow alleyway, a looming windowless building on one side, and a tall metal fence on the other. Big signs said

PRIVATE KEEP OUT
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

on the fence. Saint stopped by a metal door, and turned to look at Sannah.

"Wait here."

Within seconds, he had hauled himself over the fence. She heard his feet hit the ground as he jumped down on the other side, then the gate swung open. He motioned her in and shut the gate quickly behind them.

They were in a narrow concrete yard. A long low building stood in front of them, covered in graffiti. A wide, shuttered loading dock, and a smaller door next to it, were the only breaks in the concrete wall.

Saint led them to the small door and, taking a key from his pocket, undid a padlock.

"Is this your building?" Sannah asked.

"No," he replied, standing back so she could step inside. "I'm just using it."

He closed the door, plunging them into soupy, ultra-black darkness, then she heard a click and lights flickered on, moving sequentially down the long space. The room was huge—some sort of disused warehouse, Sannah guessed. There was dust everywhere, debris piled at random intervals against the walls.

"It's abandoned?" Sannah said.

Saint nodded, moving down through the empty space.

At the far end of the room there was more debris, but this seemed more organised than up near the door, though Sannah couldn't quite work out why. She saw some type of mechanical equipment, heavy and serious looking, though she wasn't sure what it was. Piles of tangled metal. A large piece of plyboard leaning against the wall.

She didn't understand what this place was, why he had brought her here. I hope he's not going to murder me, she suddenly thought. The thought seemed eminently logical and Sannah realised that the last tendrils of chang had quietly slipped out of her mind, taking her elation and excitement with her.

"It's good there's electric if it's abandoned," she said, looking up at the blinking strip lights hanging on wires from the metal ceiling.

"I hotwired the fuse box."

He moved towards the wall, pulled the sheet of plyboard away. There was big, silver floodlight on a tripod behind it, shiny and new amid the dust and rust of the warehouse.

"What..." Sannah was going to ask, then stopped herself.

He moved the floodlight to the middle of the room, pointing it towards a long expanse of smooth, grey concrete wall and fastening the plug to a big, industrial looking socket. It flickered to life, whiter and sharper than the strip lights.

"Wait there."

He moved down the warehouse, back towards the door. Sannah stood awkwardly, an involuntary shiver running down her limbs. The strip lights flickered off.

The white-blue of the spotlight, focused in a big circle on the white wall, was now the only light. Saint looked eerie and monotone as he came back up the room towards her.

He moved toward the spotlight and picked it up, shifting it a few feet to the left, lining it up against the scattered piles of debris.

"I'm going to turn it off for a second," he warned.

Sannah nodded, nervous and not knowing why. They were plunged into darkness.

Silence. One, two, three.

The spotlight strobed flashes into the blackness, then came on. Sannah inhaled sharply.

The perfect white circle of light sat again on the warehouse wall. But this time, in the middle of it, was a cluster of triangles, slashed through with thick diagonal lines. It showed nothing, but it felt like everything. In those abstract shapes, Sannah saw war, terror, hope. Almost menacing in its detail. Entirely made of shadow. Entirely made of light. Sannah's chest contracted.

"It was you. You made the heart."

Saint nodded. "One of the first ones I done. I've moved on since then. I don't do figurative stuff now, just abstract."

He moved the clump of crumpled metal that was in front of the spotlight and replaced it with another, then another. Most were the same formations of shapes and lines, unrecognisable as anything yet rich in meaning, but some were things she recognised. A set of stairs, grown over with grass and weeds. A human arm, palm up as if dead. A moth. Fate, her heart whispered again. Fate.

She felt that tiny tang of something she'd felt for Saint growing into something big, unrecognisable. She couldn't quash it down any longer. She turned her back to it, kept it out of her consciousness, away from her eyeline, but felt it, looming like a building behind her. She was doomed.

He walked over to the far wall and switched on the overhead lights. The shadow moth grew dim in their false yellow glow.

"Thanks," Sannah said, her voice trembling, imperceptibly. "For showing me."

He shrugged, not looking at her, and lugged the spotlight back behind its plyboard screen.

"I gotta go to work now," he said, shifting one of the metal sculptures gently to the side of the room. "You can come with me, then we'll head home."

They moved up and out of the warehouse. Sannah paused and looked back as he opened the door. The sculptures stood still and eerie in the cavernous space, all electric light and shadow. The dust danced in the air, curling in columns towards the ceiling. It looked magical, like fairies. Then he flicked the lights and it was all gone.

***

They moved again through the quiet streets. Sannah felt giddy. She was wrapped up in the magic of the warehouse, insulted from the cold. The heart was him. Fate. He'd made a moth. Fate. She couldn't deny her feelings any more. She didn't have to.

They passed into a dark street, bordered at one side by a tower block and the other by a terrace of tall, old-fashioned houses. The terrace looked like somewhere that had, in times past, been the residences of rich, distinguished people, probably with servants. Now, the yards and paintwork were aged and unkempt, the windows dirty. Long rectangles dotted with intercom buttons were nailed by the doors, suggesting that the once stately family houses were now split into many flats.

Saint turned towards one of these terraces, bounding up the stone steps that led to the door two at a time. Sannah followed him. Where were they going now? She didn't care, carried along in her fug of happiness as she followed him.

The intercom buttons glowed pale in the darkness. Saint pressed one. A voice buzzed out, the words incomprehensible in the static drone.

"Saint." He leaned in, close to the intercom. It spat its static again and the door clicked open.

The corridor inside was dirty and dark, a strip of weak light straining from the far end. Sannah followed Saint, keeping her focus on the dim bulk of his back in the dark to avoid walking into the wall. He pushed open another door.

They entered a large room. A number of people—perhaps ten, Sannah didn't count—were lounging on grubby sofas that were pushed against the walls, bordering every side of a large, empty area of fraying carpet in the middle. The room was smoky. Not like Saint's place, with its pungent smell and wispy tendrils. It was everywhere, an acrid fog. Sannah could barely see the people laying prostrate on the sofas. Her eyes were beginning to sting. She felt sharp pain in her throat, and struggled to prevent herself from coughing. She failed and coughed heavily, three times. Saint looked at her sharply.

"Wait here," he said. "I won't be long."

He moved past the sofas and their ghostly inhabitants and knocked on a door in the far wall, opposite the one they'd just entered. It was opened a crack, then further, and he slipped in.

Sannah moved next to the wall, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible. The people on the sofas were all draped, almost horizontal. They looked impossibly tilted.

Sannah could feel the smoke around her. It seemed to saturate everything, and she could sense it in her lungs, entering her body through her pores. But it wasn't that same comfortable, free feeling she'd had at Saint's.

She felt nauseous, dizzy. Her mouth tasted foul and her stomach was churning. An ominous feeling that she couldn't name almost floored her with its intensity. Please come back soon, she thought. Please don't leave me here.

She was relieved no one was paying any attention to her. She doubted she could form a sentence if she tried to speak. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her again, and the room began to sway. She pressed her palms, sweaty now, against the bumpy surface of the wall to steady herself. She was getting confused. This felt like a nightmare. A chasm was opening up to swallow her, and she was falling, falling through the floor into hell.

"Ahh, you're new," the Devil said, his face right up in hers. "Another nice little Exotic piece, well, you're always welcome, all of you. No need to be scared. You know, I love your people."

He was more human than she'd expected him to be, haggard faced like an old man, greasy grey-tinged hair slicked back from his forehead. She could feel the fires all around them, was struggling to breathe.

The Devil was talking, but she couldn't understand. It must have been a different language, some demon tongue. Sannah's legs grew weak beneath her and the lumpy wall at her back became soft, curving away. But the Devil was there, the Devil would catch her.

They were moving now, her arm on something shiny, like satin. She had no feet, but someone's feet were moving. The Devil was holding her, leading her away. He felt like satin. She was lying in satin sheets, rolled up in satin sheets. A door creaked, far away from her satin sheets.  She could hear the Devil's voice, but he too was far away now. He had cast her off.

"Here you go. This is better. This is what you want."

She was lying down, what a relief, to be lying! Her leg kicked involuntarily. She was a baby in a cradle, lying, her mother and the Devil looking down at her. Her leg kicked again, again, until it found a hard surface to rest against.

The fires of hell turned into walls, black walls. The light was unnatural, everything purple in the darkness, the devil's teeth growing neon green.

"Oh dear, you are in a mess, aren't you?"

His voice was hoarse and close to her, but he had no body. Just floating green teeth, floating eyes, green too. Hell smelt pungent, acrid, like poisoned piss.

The darkness began to coalesce into forms that made more sense to Sannah. She was aware of her body, her sickness, again. She was lying on a double bed, her legs hanging, feet on the floor. She sat upright, unsteadily.

She was in a large room, painted black. A bare, purple-white bulb glowed in the ceiling, giving out an eerie simulcrum of light. The devil was standing in front of her, just a man now. Old, skinny, wearing a dirty satin dressing gown, belted at the waist, jeans sticking out from underneath, greased hair slicked back from his gaunt face. The whites of his eyes were glowing unnaturally in the darkness. There were strange sounds in the room, strange sensations, coming from every direction. If this were real, Sannah thought, I would be scared. But it isn't real.

"Well that's better isn't it?" The Devil said, leaning in. "I'll bet you want to see my collection. Some of your friends from home. I like the Exotics, I told you so."

This was a dream. It was too surreal to be anything else. A cone of light, yellow and ordinary in the neon purple glow, beamed from the Devil's hand. It hit a black cloth. He shifted closer to the torch's target and pulled the cloth away. A cage. A snake rose up with a hiss, launched at the bars. He dropped the cloth quickly, moved his shaft of light to the right.

Another cage. Glowing eyes reflected the torchlight from a dark corner. The light found them, and a cat-like creature came into view. Then yet another cage, above that. Two small, furry rodents, throwing themselves at the bars, scrabbling to escape from the bright beam.

Sannah leaned her head between her legs and heaved. More noise. Would this dream never end? Saint. Saint. She was glad he was in her dream, even though she knew he belonged in hell. Was he talking? Why was he talking another language? His words weren't in order. He was picking her up. He smelled so nice.

"Cannu war, Cannu war, Sannah. Listen to me. Can you walk?"

"I was showing her my collection. With her being an Exotic too. She wanted to see them all."

The Devil. The Devil was talking to Saint. They knew each other. Of course they knew each other.

"Sannah. You need to listen to me. Nod if you understand."

Sannah nodded, her eyes closed, head on Saint's chest. She still had no legs. She wished the Devil would return her legs. Would he put them in a cage too?

"Sannah I need you to walk. Sannah. Walk."

Yes, the floor was coming back. One foot, the other. She could walk.

"Aicanwall," she said, her tongue fat and unmanageable in her mouth. "Aican walk."

She was walking, Saint holding her up. Were they going through a door?

"She's in quite a mess, isn't she?"

The Devil was still talking, his voice close to her ear, without a body.

They were back in that room again, the room with the smoke. They'd come back. Saint had brought her back from hell. Or was this hell still? Had she been living in hell all along, ever since their mum left? Judit was in hell. Her teachers were in hell. Everyone she knew was a lost soul, burning in hell. Fear struck her through the chest like a sword.

The smoky room receded around them, and then there was light. They were in a kitchen. A bright, harsh kitchen. A bulb in her eyes. Then Saint's face, looming in her vision. Was he holding her chin? The hard clink of glass against her teeth. Liquid, cold.

The world around her shifted, transformed. She was in a kitchen. Saint standing over her, holding her up with one arm around her back. The Devil was there too, but he wasn't really the Devil, just a skinny, ill looking middle-aged man in a stained satin dressing-gown.

Sannah pushed the glass away, choking on the water, and struggled to stand up, away from Saint's supporting arm.

"No. I'm okay." She coughed, the water feeling like it was in her lungs.

"There! She's okay!" The devil said, clapping his hands together. "She just threw a bit of a bluey. Quite a pretty little thing, isn't she? You can't beat those Exotic pieces, eh?"

He looked at Saint, who didn't reply.

"Time to go," Saint said, coldly.

Sannah wasn't sure if he was angry with her or devil man. Probably both. Now her consciousness had returned, fear clutched her stomach again. Did she dream all that? The black light, his glowing teeth? The strange animals in cages? It felt like a dream, but the presence of the Devil in the kitchen, something about the smell of the room, suggested it wasn't.

"Come on."

Saint stood up, placing his hand in the small of her back, and led her out of the bright kitchen. The hit of smoke as they entered the sofa room made Sannah gag. She was going to be sick. She just wanted to get out of there, be outside, away from this nightmare place.

They moved towards the door but her heart sank as someone beckoned Saint. Saint paused to talk to him. It was an older man, perhaps forty, all in black and muscular like Saint, but in a thick, heavy way. His hair was cut short and his face looked like a boxer's, misshapen, battered, hard. He gave off an air of unchallengeable authority.

Saint nodded as the man spoke, not speaking back. The man's eyes roved around the room. His lip curled once or twice, and Sannah noticed his teeth were black. Not rotten black, but glossy, like they'd been replaced with onyx or something similar. Sannah felt the fear again, drenching her, filling her like a sponge. Please let this end. Please.

The man passed Saint a fat envelope, which he put in his pocket, then thankfully, oh, thankfully, he was moving towards the door again, and they were out.

Outside. It was a while before Sannah could speak. She felt a million miles from her body, walking against a current, Saint a stranger again beside her.

"Who was that?" her voice said finally, shaky and far-off.

"Who?" Saint replied, not stopping, not looking at her.

"That man... with the teeth. You were talking to."

"My boss," Saint said. He didn't offer any more information.

"And the dressing gown man?" Sannah asked. Fear still clutched her guts. She kept imagining the metal spikes on the fences that they passed being rammed into her eyes. She closed down her mind to push it away.

"He owns the house. They use it for deals."

Again, nothing else. She would have to be happy with that.

"I think there were animals, in his room. In cages. Off spec ones." Sannah frowned. Were there? Had she imagined it?

"He's a skitting freak," Saint shot back, his voice hard.

"I don't know what happened," Sannah said. "I'm sorry. I..." Her voice was shaking.

"You just threw a bluey," Saint replied. "It's heavy smoky in there. The chang got to you, that's all."

His voice was hostile again, and Sannah didn't dare attempt to continue the conversation. She just followed him. She felt sick and hollow, like he was moving too fast.

Finally they reached the familiar corner of Rushton street, the flat door. The hostile, nightmarish quality to everything remained, and even when they were inside the burrow-like room, Saint deadlocking the door, Sannah couldn't shake it.

She still felt like she was in hell. Any familiarity she had imagined with Saint was an illusion. More than anything she just wanted to curl up, be alone, block out this horrific world.

She made her excuses in the most cogent way she could and headed along the buzzing corridor to the bathroom. Just to be alone. She lay on the cold, tiled floor, not feeling the damp underneath her. Only the precious solitude mattered. She stayed on the floor as long as she could, curled into the foetal position, trying to rebuild her mind, repair her shattered nerves. She was in hell. This was hell.

After a while, the hell-like feeling hadn't receded, but she felt more in control of her body. She stood up, her legs reed-like, and turned on the tap, running the cold water over her hands, splashing her face. She put her mouth under the faucet and drank, the water tasting bitter, then dried herself with the front of her t-shirt. She kept visualising the animals in cages, the rat-like things, scrabbling vainly to escape.

Her reflection in the mirror was a stranger, and fear greased her stomach once again. What was happening to her life? Where was Judit? What if she was dead, or being tortured? She would never find her. Had she given up on finding her sister? She'd been running through the streets only a few hours ago, acting like she was enjoying herself. In the warehouse, thinking she loved Saint.

She gripped the edge of the sink. She'd been stupid, stupid to go out. She was a disgusting fool. And now she had to go back, be in a room with him, try and act normal. She couldn't bear it.

Sannah took a deep breath, wiped her wet hands on her jeans, and unlocked the bathroom door.