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A Congregant coming into the city but not bothering to look for a whore? Did he think one was just going to magically appear? From the back, he looked huge, the kind of man who could easily get anything he wanted. He reached in one of the side bags of his motorcycle and pulled out what looked like a small holy book.

Oh god, here was the most dangerous type of cultist. The true believer.

Then the man turned, and I gasped loudly in the pin-dead silence of the coffee shop, instantly falling to my knees and clutching the cabinet.

Holy shit.

It was him.

My twin brother Rhyder.

It had been six years but there wasnomistaking him. He was built like the back end of a semi-truck, a huge blonde bearded man with massive shoulders, the wingspan of a fucking giant from a fairy tale, big thick body, a huge hulking menace. Unlike me, who had to realize how plain and unprepossessing I was after I moved to the city and had access to a mirror for the first time in my life, my twin was instantly arresting and unusually handsome: chiseled cheekbones like a Greek god, bright blue eyes, strong jaw.

Tattoos of holy words curved up his neck until his thick long blonde hair tied with a leather strap covered it.

Although I was hidden behind the espresso machine, I felt my skin burn as he turned in my direction, my stomach clenching with anxiety.

I could see his lips move and I knew he was praying when he touched both his shoulders, but for one terrifying moment I thought he was calling for me, summoning me out of hiding.

He can’t do that, I had to remind myself.He doesn’t know I’m here.

Remember what they told me in debriefing.

He was simply a part of my history. I couldn’t change it, only accept it.

I hadn’t seen Rhyder since the day of the social worker raid.

That day we had fought about what would happen when we turned 20 in a few months. 20 was considered the year a woman came of age in our Congregation.

And could be chosen as a wife.

“Just—just let someone else have a chance,” I begged him.

My brother looked uncomprehendingly at me.

“Achance? Foryou?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling desperate, like it was hopeless, but trying anyway.

“Don’t. . . don’t scare everyone else away. Somebody else might want to have me as their wife,” I ended, feeling my stomach drop at the look on his face.

“Temperance,no one elseis going to have you as their Helpmeet,” he said angrily, coming too close to me, boxing me into the wall of the small neat cabin we shared.

“Iam going to have you as my wife.”

“But you’re mybrother,” I protested.

“And?” Rhyder asked.

“And I don’t want you as my husband.”

He looked stunned at my words, turning away so I couldn’t see his face. But I saw a muscle in his jaw working.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, whirling his head back around.

“I do,” I said firmly. “It would be wrong.”

Rhyder’s eyes blazed at me. “I’lldecide what’s right and wrong, Temperance. Not you.”