Inside, the music is so loud it seems to bounce off the walls and burrow down inside our bodies. There are girls and women with no tops on again, serving drinks, and five shiny metal sticks in the centre of the room with naked female bodies rubbing themselves against them. We are brought into a quieter, cooler room and are served cola and chips and chicken covered in bread. I stuff the food in my mouth while the other girls stare silently. There’s a hole inside of me that feels as if it might never be filled. Mama always taught me that a full belly will soothe a rising fear.

‘Eat,’ says Petre, and the girls obediently try to swallow.

The driver of the van points at me and laughs. ‘Greedy little cow. Looks like we have a natural!’

Magda says, ‘Not yet. She’s still only a girl. Her father lied.’

The man shrugs. ‘Many will want that.’

‘That’s not our thing. That’s a whole other world.’

Petre eats a mouthful of chips. ‘Who’s to know?’

‘We know, and that is enough.’

‘Who asked you, woman? You’d do well to keep your trap shut.’

She smiles sweetly. ‘Ok, but just give me some time with her. She cost too much money to make her work before she’s ready.’

The two men speak amongst themselves in a hacking language I don’t understand. They sound as if they are clearing their throats, ready to spit on the ground. Magda speaks back to them in the same tongue, then I hear her say in our language, ‘She is worth more to us alive. You could kill her by getting her to do things too soon. There are men who will pay top money for a girl still intact and this place will only cheapen her value.’

I try not think of what she has just said, even though the words are echoing in my brain. The men just laugh.

When we finish eating, the men tell the girls to take their clothes off. This is when some of the girls make the mistake of screaming. I know better. I take my clothes off, looking straight ahead, imagining I’m about to step into the warm soapy bathtub Mama has prepared for me. We are all standing naked, some of the girls are shivering, one of them shouts and is hit hard. Then, one by one, the girls are taken away into separate rooms. The two friends cling to one another. They are torn apart. I think of the baby acorns. When all the other girls have gone, there is just Magda and me left.

She says in a cold voice, ‘Put your clothes back on,’ and she hands me another glass of cola. I wonder is she going to put me to sleep for what is about to happen.