Sweat drips down my back as the damp grass I'm sitting on soaks through my trousers. I don't even attempt to stand. My legs are still shaking from the exertion of sprinting between the two stones Wes placed on the floor. Orla and Sienna are currently being subjected to the same torture I just experienced. They don't look like they're dying whereas I did. I'm so unfit.

"I can't believe I have to share a bed with Wes. What will people think?" Max grumbles.

"We'll think you'll be sleeping like the rest of us," I pant.

Max frowns.

I nudge him gently. "What's going on?"

"I...I..." Max looks around trying to find the words. "I don't think it's right men sleeping together."

"I did offer to share with you."

"That's no better. Only spouses should sleep together in a bed. Anyone else and it's wrong." Max shakes his head.

"Why?" I say simply. "I don't see a problem with sharing a bed with others. It's better than sleeping on an uncomfortable floor which gives you a sore back."

Max ignores my dig and says quietly, "Because it encourages immoral behaviour."

"Do you want to have sex with Wes?' I ask.

"No." Max looks disgusted.

"Me?"

"No," Max snaps, looking even more appalled.

"Then sleeping with us won't encourage immoral behaviour," I say flatly. "You're overthinking this. You and Wes will both sleep then you'll wake up tomorrow refreshed. Nothing else needs to happen."

"When I thought you and my mum were..." Max swallows. "Well, when I thought she might be gay I thought maybe I was too. Our Reflection Youth leader would speak about how certain behaviours encourage gayness, like fighting with males, showering, sharing beds, spending time with men you suspect of being gay."

I laugh but his words make me sad. "It doesn't work like that Max. Liking the same sex is not a contagious disease. Some people are attracted to men, some women, some both and ultimately who cares. I don't and you shouldn't. The gender someone decides to have consensual sex with or fall in love with does not harm anyone else."

Max frowns, picking the blades of grass in between his feet. Wes, Orla and Sienna slump down next to us.

"What are you two talking about?" Sienna asks wiping her brow. Her sleeveless top reveals a range of marks: educational, hobbies, her intricate family seal has birds intertwined with vines. On her left wrist is a large black opaque circle positioned on top of where her engagement seal should be located. Sienna follows my gaze and rubs it. A brief look of pain and sadness crosses her face before it disappears and is replaced with her usual expression; a half-smile along with an arched eyebrow. She has an amazing skill at looking permanently intriguing and sexy.

"My engagement didn't work out hence the black circle to show the contract was terminated. After that, my husband prospects were pretty dismal. Even though the end of the engagement wasn't my fault, people didn't see it like that." Sienna rolls her eyes. "In the end, my only offer was from a fifty-year-old widower who sweated profusely. I decided to run instead of commit. I got caught by an Official a few hours later who told me I had to choose; return to my family which would mean marrying the sweaty widower or be sent to a labour camp or he could hand me over to someone who owned a secret establishment."

"What establishment did you end up at?" I say unsurprised.

The story is similar to the ones of most people in the world I was brought up in. It was the same story behind Lena and Lottie ending up in the fight bar. Officials give ultimatums and The State know about it. The anger swells up inside me at the thought.

"You wouldn't know it. It was a small Reflection Centre in a town up North, but to get access to a little uncensored paid pleasure, all you had to ask was for 'a one to one session with Reflection Overseer Hana to help ease the impure thoughts which keep you awake at nine minutes past six in the morning-'"

My body goes cold and my lips start to move interrupting Sienna without meaning to. "When the birds no longer sing and the corruptness tries to seize you like a depraved antagonist of The State."

Everyone stares at me and I try to smile, to force some life into my bloodless face. They're waiting for an explanation of how I know the saying. I clear my throat. "My mum ran a laundry business and that was one of our customers. I used to collect and deliver."

"That's crazy so we would have probably passed each other at some point."

"I doubt it," I say slowly, trying to moisten the desert which has formed in my mouth. "I only dealt with Reflection Overseer Hana."

"Still, it's a small building, we would have been in the same building." Sienna smiles and I wished she'd stop talking about that place. I wish she would change the subject and make some crude innuendo which Max would tut and scowl at causing us all to laugh. She doesn't. Sienna keeps talking, "Hana was crazy, mad as a hatter but her assistant Trey always kept her in line. He was really strict, didn't take any rubbish from us. If we broke the rules we were out, no exception. You would have definitely met him. Trey followed her around like a lovesick puppy."

She waits expectantly and I shake my head. "I never met him. He must have started working thereafter we moved and stopped serving them."

"Can't be. He's been there for almost five years now."

"I was twelve when I used to deliver there," I say quietly.

Wes and Orla look shocked. Is it shocking that a twelve year visited a house which sold sex? Probably, but it's not when that's what you've grown up around. Those places were the reason me and my mum could afford to eat and put a roof over our head.

Sienna seems unfazed and her arched eyebrow raises further as she tries to make chronological sense of my time delivering there. "You must have been delivering just before she employed Trey. She brought him in to keep an eye on her workers due to some horrific incident involving-"

I wince and unconsciously cross my arms over my chest causing Sienna to stop talking. Pressing my arms hard against me, I try to keep myself together whilst also holding myself back from shouting at her to drop it and forget what she knows. The thought of her retelling the story of the horrific incident she's heard about fills me with dread, especially as I am the main character in it.

I visibly see Sienna connecting the dots of information together in her head. Her lips part forming a perfect circle instantly telling me she has figured I'm the person who was involved in that incident. I'm the reason Hana decided she needed to employ additional help to keep her workers or should I call them prisoners in line.

"I don't understand what they're talking about. Why would Sienna be working at a Reflection Centre? What's uncensored paid pleasure? And why would a Reflection Centre need a laundry service?" Max says, looking bewildered.

"I'll explain later. Let's go clean ourselves up for dinner." Wes slaps Max gently on the back.

Max is about to refuse until he looks at me and swiftly gets up to follow. Wes gives me a sympathetic nod of the head before leaving and I'm guessing he's heard a third maybe fourth hand account of this story from Sienna. A story which has probably morphed into something else entirely however I'm sure the essential gruesome parts are still present; appealing to everyone's morbid fascination.

"Cady, I'm sorry," Sienna says softly

"What for? You didn't do anything." I jump up. "Come on, we need to clean ourselves up too. Imani and Phil don't look like the sort of people who will be happy watching us drip sweat onto their beautiful pristine tablecloths as we eat dinner, and we don't want to upset them on the first night."

I smile, forcing my facial muscles to relax. This conversation is a reminder of why I box away my past to the deep recesses of my mind. I contain them and lock them away so I can pretend they didn't happen which means they don't hurt me anymore. Or that's what I tell myself anyway. It's a lie. They often resurface by surprise like a sharp violent stab to the gut.

This is why I don't open up. The thought of voluntarily letting loose and exposing the traumatic events of my youth scares me, but I'm starting to realise I may have no choice. It's only a matter of time before my badly built boxes rip wide open and pour out the contents of my repressed memories. What scares me most is I have no one to help me put myself back together.