Chapter 1: The Monster's Auction
The air in the room tasted like old coins and cheaper whiskey. A scratched jazz record hummed from a hidden corner, the trumpet line frayed and melancholic, barely cutting through the murmur of expensive suits and quiet, predatory assessments. Velvet curtains, the color of a bruise, sagged against the walls, swaying slightly in the draft from a vent that smelled of damp earth. This wasn’t a place for joy. It was a market.
Natasha Romanoff kept her expression neutral, a skill honed in courtrooms and now perfected in rooms like this. Her green eyes scanned the crowd, cataloging faces she’d seen in financial briefs and obituaries. She felt the familiar, warm pressure of Wanda’s hand on her thigh, a possessive anchor. Wanda’s fingers weren’t gentle. They pressed, a silent claim, a reminder of the hierarchy that existed even here, in public.
“Next lot is a true one-of-a-kind,” the auctioneer’s voice was a dry rasp, amplified by a small microphone. “A conversation piece. A testament to modern… curiosity.”
The spotlight hit the center of the modest stage, a circle of blinding white in the smoky dim. A girl was led out by a handler in black gloves. She was naked, skin so pale it looked grey under the harsh light, like marble dust. She had no body hair, not even eyebrows, giving her a stark, unfinished look. Her hair was a shocking sweep of silver-white, cut unevenly around a gaunt face. But her eyes… they weren’t downcast. They darted across the crowd, bright and unsettlingly aware, taking stock of the buyers with a weird, eccentric curiosity.
“Designation: Hannah,” the auctioneer continued. “Nineteen years. History includes institutionalization, juvenile detention, two charges of attempted murder as a minor. Deemed legally incompetent. A resilient specimen, having participated in numerous private biomedical studies. Psychological profile notes dissociative episodes, aggressive ideation, and… unique dietary requirements.”
A low chuckle rippled through part of the crowd. Someone murmured the word “vampire” with a scoff.
Hannah’s head tilted. She heard it. A smile spread across her face, wide and disarmingly friendly, but it didn’t touch those bright, wide eyes. It was a mask, and a poorly fitted one. She turned her head, her gaze latching onto the man who’d scoffed. Her smile stayed, but her eyes chilled, like chips of fluorescent ice. The man shifted uncomfortably and looked away.
Natasha felt a jolt, a professional detachment shattering. The girl’s defiance, that terrifying, aware vulnerability, struck her like a physical blow. This wasn’t a broken doll. This was a fractured, dangerous piece of glass, still sharp enough to cut. Her lawyer’s mind began drafting a defense, a mitigation plea, even as her deeper, more visceral instinct roared to the surface.
Wanda’s hand tightened on her thigh, nails biting slightly through the fabric of her slacks. Natasha glanced at her wife. Wanda’s profile was statuesque, her long auburn hair a dark waterfall over one shoulder. Her expression was unreadable, a flawless poker face. But Natasha saw it—the slight flare of her nostrils, the intense, focused gleam in her own green eyes as she watched Hannah. It was the same look she got when surveying a complex business acquisition, a problematic rival, a new territory. Calculating. Predatory. Interested.
“She’s just a kid,” Natasha whispered, her voice barely audible under the jazz and the murmuring.
“She’s a loaded gun someone left in a playground,” Wanda murmured back, her lips barely moving. “Look at her. She’s waiting for someone to pull the trigger. Or point her.”
On stage, the handler gave Hannah a slight nudge to turn around. Hannah complied, but slowly, with a deliberate, almost theatrical roll of her shoulders. The spotlight caught the lattice of faint, silvery scars across her back—neat surgical lines, burn marks, old cuts. A map of pain. As she turned back, her confident gaze swept the room again. This time, it snagged on Wanda and Natasha.
She stared. Not with fear, or hope, but with a stark, analytical curiosity. Her head cocked to the other side. She was studying them, as they studied her. Natasha held her breath. She saw the girl’s eyes drop to Wanda’s commanding posture, to the way Natasha leaned subtly into her wife’s touch, then back up to their faces. Hannah’s disarming smile returned, softer this time, less a weapon and more a question.
The auctioneer started the bidding. The numbers were low, clinical. They were bidding on a problem, a novelty, a dangerous pet.
Wanda didn’t move. She watched the other bidders, a faint, contemptuous smirk on her lips as a man in a too-tight tuxedo raised his paddle for a paltry sum.
Natasha’s heart hammered against her ribs. This was madness. They had files on other children, smoother cases, babies from clean agencies. This was chaos in human form. This was a liability that could shatter the careful, dual walls of their lives. She thought of the quiet darkness of their bedroom, of the release she found in submission to Wanda’s will, a sacred space separate from all this. This girl would tear through those walls without even trying.
But looking at Hannah, seeing that defiant, lost stare locked onto them, she also saw the desperate child underneath the monster label. She saw a soul who’d never known a soft touch, a regular meal, a safe place to sleep. The maternal instinct she buried under court filings and legal strategems twisted inside her, urgent and undeniable.
Wanda’s voice cut through her thoughts, a low, calm vibration against her ear. “She doesn’t belong to any of these carrion-feeders. They’d break her for fun or lock her in a lab again. She’d be dead in a month.”
Natasha turned, searching Wanda’s face. “What are you saying?”
Wanda finally moved. She reached for the bidding paddle on the empty seat beside her, her movement fluid and absolute. She didn’t just raise it. She held it aloft, a silent, commanding gesture that cut off the current bid. All eyes turned to her. The auctioneer’s bored tone shifted, recognizing serious money, serious intent.
“A new bidder. Thank you, ma’am.”
Wanda didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes on Hannah, who was now staring back, that eerie, knowing smile gone, replaced by a look of pure, unguarded shock.
Natasha watched the understanding dawn on the girl’s face. Someone was fighting for her. Not with a low, scornful bid, but with a statement.
Her throat tightened. She leaned closer to Wanda, her lips almost touching her wife’s earlobe. Her whisper was raw, stripped of all professional pretense, filled only with a yearning so deep it shook.
“She’s perfect.”
Wanda heard the crack in Natasha’s voice. She placed her free hand back on Natasha’s thigh, the grip firm, steadying, promising. This was their decision. Together.
The bidding war started in earnest now, numbers climbing. Wanda met each raise without hesitation, her voice a cool, clear counterpoint in the hushed room. She wasn’t buying a monster. She was acquiring a asset, a project, a new and utterly chaotic piece for their complicated puzzle.
She was acquiring an asset, a project, a new and utterly chaotic piece for their complicated puzzle.
The bidding stuttered briefly after Wanda’s entrance, then surged. A man with a bored, aristocratic sneer raised the price. Another, whose eyes lingered too long and too low on Hannah, countered.
Hannah watched the numbers climb. Her initial shock dissolved, replaced by a performance-ready awareness. This was her arena, too. A brittle, terrible smile touched her lips. She stuck her tongue out, pointed and pink, running it along the edge of her noticeably sharp canine before letting her head loll to the side, a parody of seduction. It was garish. It was desperate. It was a weapon.
“Turn. Bend over,” the auctioneer instructed, his voice devoid of anything but transactional clarity.
Hannah obeyed without a second of hesitation. She turned her back to the crowd, the silvery scars now a full map for their viewing. She bent from the waist, placing her hands on her knees, a practiced pose. Then, with a confidence that was itself a kind of scream, she reached back with both hands and spread herself open, offering a full, blatant view of her hairless sex and the tight pucker of her asshole under the cruel spotlight.
The room’s atmosphere curdled. A sharp whistle cut the air from the left. Someone grunted, “Now that’s a showpiece.”
Next to Wanda, Natasha’s breath hitched, a tiny, almost imperceptible sound. Her lawyer’s mask held, but her knuckles were white where she gripped her own knee. The display wasn’t erotic; it was a violation so complete it felt surgical. This child had learned to commodify her own humiliation, to play the monster they all wanted to see.
Wanda didn’t flinch. Her eyes remained on the girl, analyzing. But Natasha heard the soft, almost reverent curse breathed against her ear. “Fuck.”
On stage, Hannah shook her assplayfully, a crude little jiggle, and then smacked her own left cheek with a sharp crack. The sound echoed. She let out a manufactured, tinkling laugh that grated against the jazz.
The bids jumped higher. The man with the sneer was getting irritated, his bids sharper. The leerer was getting excited, his voice louder.
Wanda simply raised her paddle, each time, her movement effortless. The numbers became absurd. This was no longer about purchasing a problematic girl; it was a statement of territory, of limitless resource. Wanda was telling the room, and Hannah, that there was no ceiling.
Hannah straightened up slowly. She turned to face them again, her eyes finding Wanda’s in the crowd. The crazy-monster act was still there in the tilting head, the pantomime grin, but her eyes were different. They were questioning. Calculating. A faint line appeared between her brows, as if trying to solve a complex equation written in the set of Wanda’s jaw and the unyielding stillness of Natasha’s posture.
The auctioneer’s voice rose to a crescendo. “Going once… at this unprecedented figure… going twice…”
The man with the sneer shook his head, throwing a disgusted look at Wanda, whom he clearly now recognized not just as a bidder, but as power.
“Sold!”
The gavel fell with a definitive crack.
The spotlight on Hannah winked out, plunging her back into the general gloom of the stage. For a second, her confident posture wavered. She just stood there, naked and suddenly still, as if the strings had been cut.
Wanda placed the bidding paddle down calmly. She turned her hand over on Natasha’s thigh, linking their fingers. Her grip was vise-tight. “Let’s go collect our problem,” she said, her voice low and utterly composed.
Natasha nodded, unable to speak. The reality was a cold wash down her spine. They had done it. They had just bought a person. A girl who bared her teeth and spread her cheeks for a room full of vultures. A girl who was now, legally and irrevocably, theirs.
The handler approached Hannah with a thin, silver robe. Hannah shrugged into it without looking at him, her bright eyes locked on the path Wanda and Natasha were now taking through the dispersing crowd. She tied the belt slowly, her fingers fumbling just once.
As they neared the stage steps, Hannah’s wide, unsettling smile returned. It didn’t reach her eyes.
“Hi,” she said, her voice raspy from disuse. She stuck the tip of her tongue out again, a quick, reptilian flicker. “Guess you’re my new lab.”
“Guess you’re my new lab.”
The words hung in the smoky air, her voice a rough scrape, like gravel in a tin can. It wasn’t a young girl’s voice. It was a ruined instrument.
Wanda didn’t blink. “Get down from there.” It wasn’t a request. It was a command, simple and absolute.
Hannah’s smile twitched. She hopped down from the low stage with a lightness that belied her sharp edges, the silver robe flapping open. She made no move to close it. The handler moved to take her arm, but Wanda’s gaze, a flick of green ice, stopped him cold. “She walks with us.”
The walk through the dwindling crowd was a silent procession. Natasha felt dozens of eyes on them—curious, envious, disgusted. She kept her chin up, her arm linked through Wanda’s, projecting a unity she was desperately trying to feel. Hannah trailed just behind them, a pale ghost in a metallic robe. Natasha could hear the soft shuffle of her bare feet on the concrete floor.
They emerged into a private parking garage, the cold, clean air a shock after the club’s thickness. A sleek black car idled, a driver standing stiffly by the open rear door.
Hannah stopped walking, her head swiveling to take in the vehicle, the clean lines, the palpable wealth. She whistled, a low, rusty sound. “Fancy cage.”
“It’s a car,” Wanda said, her tone dry. “Get in.”
Hannah didn’t hesitate. She slid across the cool leather seat, the robe opening fully as she moved. She left it open, sitting with her bare legs folded underneath her, facing them as Wanda and Natasha settled on the opposite seat. The door thudded shut, sealing them in a quiet, perfumed capsule.
The interior lights were soft. They illuminated the landscape of her.
Hannah didn’t care much for clothes and was definitely not ashamed of her body. It was childlike in its lack of development—a flat, pale chest, a soft, slight stomach, the build of a late adolescent boy. But this childish canvas was overwritten with a brutal text. The silvery scars from the stage were joined by others up close: pucker marks from old needles, thin white lines along her inner arms, a vicious burn scar distorting the skin over her right hip. It was a harsh contract written in pain.
She looked from Wanda to Natasha and back, her bright eyes flickering. There was no fear in her posture, only a wired, waiting intensity. She looked at them like she was their pet, a strange creature they’d plucked from a gutter, ready to fetch or kill anything for them. Both Wanda and Nat enjoyed this. The raw, unfiltered transfer of power was palpable, a current in the quiet car.
“So,” Hannah rasped. She cleared her throat, which did nothing to smooth the damage. Her voice was very raspy from all the cocks she’d taken and tests done on her. “What’s the first test? Sleep study? Shock therapy? Or you wanna fuck first? I don’t mind the order.” She said it with a casual, practiced ease, picking at a loose thread on the robe’s belt.
Natasha’s stomach clenched. Wanda, however, just leaned back, assessing.
“What’s your name?” Wanda asked.
“They told you. Hannah.”
“Your full name.”
A shrug. “Just Hannah. They cut the other part off. Didn’t fit on the specimen label.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen. Probably. That’s what the last bone scan said.”
“Where were you born?”
Another raspy chuckle. “Tube. Jar. I don’t know. Some bright room that smelled like bleach and piss.” Her eyes, for a second, went distant. Then they snapped back. “This is boring. You paid a lot. You should use the product.”
“We are,” Natasha said, her voice softer than Wanda’s, but no less firm. “We’re gathering baseline data.”
Hannah’s gaze swung to her, analytical. “You’re the softer one. The… compliance officer.” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “You want me to be good.”
“I want you to be safe,” Natasha corrected.
The word seemed to confuse Hannah. Her nose scrunched. “Safe is a room with padded walls and no windows. Safe is boring. Safe makes me hungry.”
“Hungry?” Wanda pounced on the word, her interest sharpening.
Hannah’s expression shifted, a shadow passing behind her eyes. The performative bravado dimmed for a half-second, revealing something gnawing and primal beneath. “I have to feed. It’s… part of the wiring. They said it’s a somatic psionic manifestation. I just call it the itch. When it gets bad, I hunt.”
The car was silent save for the hum of the engine. They knew what she meant. The file had been vague but clear about ‘unique dietary requirements.’
“We’ll manage that,” Wanda stated, as if discussing a medical condition. Because she was. “What triggers your anger?”
The question was so direct it made Hannah blink. The friendly, eerie mask dissolved completely. Her grey eyes darkened. “Stupidity. Lies. People who say they’ll stay and then leave. People who touch without asking.” Her fingers, resting on her knee, curled into a claw. “Betrayal. That’s the big one. That makes the other one come out.”
“The other one?”
“The one who laughs while she breaks things.” Hannah said it plainly, as if describing the weather. Then she shook her head, and the disarming smile slammed back into place, jarring and bright. “But I’m good! I’m really very friendly. I just need rules. Clear ones. And food. And… can I have a window? In my room? I like to see the sky.”
The abrupt shift, the childish request crashing into the confession of violence, left a hollow ache in Natasha’s chest. She saw Wanda’s jaw tighten, not in anger, but in fierce recognition. This was the broken, chaotic soul she was drawn to. This was the project.
“You’ll have a room,” Wanda said. “With a window. And rules. My rules.”
Hannah nodded rapidly, like a bird. “Yes. Good. Your rules.” She looked out the tinted window at the passing city lights, her reflection ghostly over the glitter. “What do I call you?”
“Wanda. And Natasha.”
“Not ‘ma’am’? Not ‘master’?” Hannah tested the titles, her rasp giving them a gothic, theatrical sound.
“Our names will do,” Natasha said.
Hannah turned back from the window, her gaze settling on them with a new, unsettling focus. She hugged her knees to her chest, the robe falling away completely. She didn’t notice or care. “Wanda. Natasha.” She said the names slowly, tasting them. “Okay. I can fetch things for you. I’m fast. Or I can kill things for you. I’m good at that, too. I just need to know what you want.”
The car slowed, turning onto a tree-lined driveway towards a secluded, modern house. The journey was over. The real one was just beginning.
“For now,” Wanda said, her eyes holding Hannah’s frantic, eager stare, “we want you to come inside. And we’ll talk about what we all want.”