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But the stickiness between her thighs, the telltale sting of rough use, had her face pinching against the judgment. She inhaled, long and deep. Mustered the energy to roll onto her side, to face away from the others and curl her body in against exposure.

She had refused to sell out and ended up in the exact same place: the fuck doll of some self-righteous Covvie. And nothing to show for it. Not even pride.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Buckeye jerked and sucked in air.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

“Let me out, you sick fucks!”

She turned her head, then managed to flop back onto her back. Two cells down, a woman was hammering her door with both fists. She was the one who had leaped on the guards when they’d restrained that last man who’d refused.

A single loud thud came from the outside the door, rattling reinforced metal in its frame.

“Calm down,” said a guard.

The woman kicked the door with a bare foot and screeched. Backed away, hands fisting in her hair on both sides of her head, tearing. Fingers turned to claws, moving to rake her face. Buckeye drew her knees up to her chest, as though the woman could lash out and strike her from the other cell.

“I said, calm down.” The voice was deeper, and Buckeye’s chest tightened at the warning in the sound.

No such instincts of self-preservation infected the other woman. She was incandescent. Unhinged. Buckeye watched, sideways, as the Vicer flung herself backward into the wall, and began banging her skull with no small amount of violence.

Holy shit.

The cell door swept open and two guards muscled in, the first reaching for the rabid woman, the second closing the door behind them.

Something happened when the first man made his grab. Buckeye couldn’t tell what amid the tangle of limbs, but the woman went limp in a heartbeat. White fabric draped from one of the second guard’s hands, while he held some dark tool in the other. The first guard laid her to the floor.

They worked together to stuff her into the straight jacket, flipping her onto her stomach to buckle down the straps once they’d worked her arms into sleeves. The tool came into play again, and pneumatic sounds came dull through the cell dividers. Four separate bursts, as Buckeye counted.

When the men stood, she could see the woman’s jacket somehow tacked to the floor. Possibly an involvement of metal rings in this, though it was too far away for her to make out something tiny like that for sure. When she woke, though, the Vicer would not be going anywhere. Buckeye made a face at the thought of the bucket.

She groaned and shut her eyes, trying to breathe again through her aches.

Until today, Buckeye Wheeler might have had her beliefs, but none of them had included a hell. She wasn’t sure when sleep came.

They never shut off the lights.

The next day they all got showers.

Whether it was because Buckeye was near the end of the line for the single stall, and all the other Vicers expended the hot water before she got there, or whether the priests had decided VT sinners deserved ice needles to clean their flesh, the shower was a miserable experience.

While running hot water was a luxury in The Vice, she knew these fuckers had it. Just like their lights everywhere, and their clothes free of dust. The upright tiled cubicle looked as though its builders had meant it to serve the occasional clergy member, but today the spray from its head had to soldier through eight filthy lustworkers. And Buckeye.

Guards stood around, faces unreadable, silent except for the occasional bark for one of the Vicers to hurry. The menace of batons at their hips had the group subdued, if wary.

What kind of religion needs people standing around with weapons?

Buckeye had slept hard, for a time. Dead to the world, even on the bare floor, body taxed beyond limits. But when the woman in the jacket surfaced out of her drugged state to find herself restrained once more, well … no one in the cells got any sleep after that.

There was no bother with finding clothes for any of them. When the freezing showers were done—for those who hadn’t ‘earned’ one the previous night—the guards herded them through the halls on full, naked display.

She couldn’t help herself shrinking inward, arms folding over her breasts. Any minute, Buckeye was sure someone would come swinging out from one of the doors along the corridor and see the line of captives. She grimaced, bare feet connecting with cold floor.

As if no one’s gonna look at you wherever we’re going next.

That, and her nipples were about to pop off and go shooting across the room.