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Mather’s eyes flicked to one of the guards. In a single, booted step, a baton touched the lower back of the man standing next to the woman.

He yelled, coming up on tiptoe, his whole body in an arc, while the woman pivoted with a shriek of her own. Her hands swept to her face, and wide eyes refused to believe where the jolt had landed.

The guard put his weapon to the back of the man’s knee, and the Vicer crumpled, his body a grotesque parody of his peers who had knelt of their own accord. A second guard stepped in, some sort of complicated metal rod in hand he’d produced from fuck-knew-where. The two began yanking the limbs of the prone lustworker into a specific arrangement.

The woman flung herself at the pair of guards, fingers like claws at their uniforms, but she’d forgotten these weren’t the only two. More hands hauled her back, and the next few moments were ugly.

Buckeye cringed at the sounds the two made. The pointless fight. The odd extra bits on the metal rod she now could see were a type of restraint. Ankles first, and then wrists, the guards had the man bound to opposite ends of the rod. He was useless this way, legs wide and arms alongside his shins, unable to push himself upright.

He was prostrate, just like the others. All the struggle to end up the same way. The woman was no different, bound in seconds, though she swore with surprising creativity and violence the whole time. A guard replaced her gag and she growled into that, instead.

As Buckeye stared down the line of VT rentbodies in various stages of use, a new reality sank onto her shoulders.

She was the only one still standing.

Mather’s gaze was on her. He took slow steps in her direction.

No.

“The ways you learned in the Territories are over.” He looked at her while he spoke, but his voice rose to address the room. “Here in New Covenant, service to the Church is not an option.”

Even the restrained pair bounced in front of black-trousered hips by the time Mather made his way over. The priests had no qualms, mounting men as well as women. A white cassock stopped just in front of her.

“Do you think,” he said, in tones pitched just for her, “because you didn’t serve in a house of Lust, you wouldn’t be called upon to serve here?”

Buckeye scowled.

Don’t do it.

Her tongue drew back into her mouth.

Ain’t no point, Wheeler.

Mather raised a brow. She spit in his face.

“Get fucked, Covvie.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t break eye contact, but spoke over her shoulder to the guards, who were done with the last pair of rebels.

“Break her.”

Why? Why, Bucks?

Hands clapped on her upper arms before his mouth had closed on the words. They were hauling her back; her legs had to blunder in reverse to keep her from collapse. Back and back.

The door latch clicked behind her. They were leaving the room.

She refused to look away, all venom and Vice, but the man in white only watched with cool interest. As though she were an experiment that had taken a curious turn.

The guards dragged her out into the crypt. The door shut on her first taste of Virtue.

When forcing her to walk backward became too much of a chore, the guards spun her and switched arms. Now they marched back the way they’d come, under arches and concealed uplighting. She had nothing to say to them.

A left turn just before they reached the way back to the glossy hallway revealed another wood door, aged to match the architecture. One of the men pulled it open to reveal a short stone landing, and then stairs to somewhere even lower in the building.

The grey-clad pair exchanged looks, and the one who hadn’t opened the door shrugged and said, “Just carry her.”

And so she was over a shoulder again, giving up the idea of a fight, as this would be a better choice than the baton. She bounced as the steps spiraled down, the boots of the second guard keeping pace just within her vision, when she bothered to raise her head.