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Holy hell. My stomach tensed. This happens every few months, a group of Congregants rolling into town on the lookout for Unsaved women to kidnap and take back to live on their cult lands for a year or so. Until they get bored and dump them back on the outskirts of town. The ones still alive anyways.

It’s not Ronan’s Congregation; his is too big and prosperous and self-contained to need to find outside women. But the smaller Congregations often come to the wicked cities to pick Unsaved women to act as statusless cult whores. Whether they’re common women anyone can fuck, or whether they have special status, they can never be wives because they’re Unsaved. Impure. Unclean. Tainted with living in the city. Seen as only dirty whores and dirty cunts to fuck.

No one wants to be taken by one of the Congregation motorcycle gangs, but our Unsaved governments are so weak there isn’t much they can do about it. I put down the mug I was washing and tried to force myself not to cower behind the espresso machine. There was no reason to believeI’dbe randomly chosen. I’m small, dressed in my big, baggy sweatshirt in the February chill, my strawberry blonde hair dyed a jet-black and pulled back in a messy knot. No makeup on. Pants covered in milk after the latte machine malfunctioned.

I was small and unremarkable and unmemorable.

And I liked it that way.

Still, I was tense as the men parked their motorcycles on the opposite side of the street.

Seeing any Congregants always brings back the memories.

Because. . .what if. . .someday. . . it’s him.

My phone dinged and I looked down, my fingers shaking as I silenced it. You weren’t supposed to do anything to drawtheirattention during a concubine run.

It was my sometimes-boyfriend Craig, reminding me that the birthday party for his dad was tonight.

What if the Congregants are still here?I texted him.

Nah, it’ll be fine, he texted back.They don’t stay long. Wear a dress.

In some ways it feels like I never really escaped from my Congregation.

The whole state, the wholecountry, is trapped by them, all of us dreading their random incursions and fearing their holy raiding parties. But the Unsaved governments have no power to stop them.

All they can do is warn us and hope the Congregants get enough women quickly to satiate their lusts, then leave without getting pissed off and killing anyone.

There were monthly safety talks and reminders for what we were supposed to do during a concubine run.

Freeze and shelter in place.

Don’tapproach them. They are dangerous.

Don’ttalk to them any more than you have to. They are unpredictable and since the Unsaved don’t understand Congregation life, you can never be sure you won’t do or say something the Congregants consider a moral offense punishable by death.

Whatever you do,don’t assume they will be like men in the cities.

They aren’t.

I knew that better than anyone.

Don’ttry to fight back. Congregant men are extremely violent and taught to fight from an early age.

They outnumber us. They outgun us. They outpower us.

Just let them take who they want to, and we usually get through a concubine run without any bloodshed.

You’re not supposed to pay them undue attention either, just go about your business, but of course it’s impossible not to look at them. Like most of the Congregants on whore runs, they’re big men in heavy leather jackets with patches showing which Congregation they belong to.

Everyone in the coffee shop is frozen in place, eyes locked on the group of men now getting off their motorcycles.

My eyes scan the group carefully.Two four six eight ten, ok, not too many of them, only a mid-sized raiding party. I could see the patch on a dark-haired man’s jacket that indicated he was this Congregation’s Enforcer. He went around to each of the other men, shaking the customary drops of holy oil on their heads. This was to keep the men pure, even though they’re literally here to find women to fuck and savage.

This is how they operate, though. A few drops of oil and you can do what you want.

The men then moved off in different directions to find whatever unlucky woman would be trapped with them to be fucked at will. Only one man remained at the motorcycles.