Chapter 3: The Bleeding Discipline
The smell of bleach and raw meat lingered in the house for days, a pungent overlap of antiseptic and iron.
Hannah cleaned. She scrubbed the floorboards on her hands and knees until the pine grain showed pale and bloodless. She did it with a grim, focused intensity that seemed to absorb all her chaotic energy. Viktor, a man built like a refrigerator with a tombstone’s smile, came and dealt with the deer in the garden. Hannah watched from her window as he field-dressed it with swift, efficient cuts, bundling the offal into black bags. She didn’t flinch.
Wanda made good on her directive. That afternoon, while Hannah showered for the second time, scalding water turning her skin bright pink, Wanda laid out simple clothes on the stripped bed: black tactical cargo pants, a few plain grey cotton t-shirts, a heavy zip-up hoodie. No frills. No pretenses of softness. Hannah emerged, towel around her thin frame, and eyed the pile. She picked up the pants, feeling the sturdy fabric.
“These are acceptable,” she announced to the empty room.
Downstairs, Wanda had commandeered the stainless-steel kitchen island. The venison, now butchered into neat, dark-red cuts, lay arranged on a slab of marble. Hannah approached slowly, her damp hair dripping onto the shoulders of the new hoodie.
“You know how to use a knife?” Wanda asked, not looking up from the cut she was trimming.
“For cutting,” Hannah said, her tone implying it was a stupid question.
“For precision,” Wanda corrected. She handed Hannah a sharp, narrow boning knife. “Take this. Remove the silver skin from this backstrap. It’s tough. You scrape, don’t saw. Waste as little meat as possible.”
Hannah took the knife. Her grip was instinctive, confident. She set to work, her brow furrowed in concentration. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it was productive. The sound of knife against connective tissue, the soft thump of meat being set aside.
Natasha entered, dressed in civilian clothes—dark jeans and a soft sweater. She’d been on a call with the adoption agency, her professional voice seamlessly papering over the chaos of her home life. She stopped, watching the scene: her wife, the mob boss, teaching their feral, blood-drinking charge how to butcher game in their ten-thousand-dollar kitchen.
“Progress?” Natasha asked, leaning against the fridge.
“She’s not terrible with a blade,” Wanda conceded.
“I’m excellent with a blade,” Hannah muttered, not looking up. “Just usually for different things.”
“The principle is the same. Control. Purpose.” Wanda’s lesson was concise. “Now the shopping. We’ll go now.”
The mall was a specific kind of hell. Hannah had never been to one. The vast, echoey space, the assault of fluorescent lights and piped-in pop music, the sheer, overwhelming volume of stuff made her go rigid just inside the entrance. Her head swiveled, eyes darting to every exit, every passing face. Her breathing shallowed.
“Breathe, kid,” Wanda said quietly, her hand not touching Hannah but hovering near her elbow. “It’s just a building. No one here is looking for you.”
“They might be,” Hannah hissed, her pupils wide.
“They’re not. And if they were, I’d know.” Wanda’s voice was absolute. “Stay between us. Look at the stores, not the people.”
They moved as a unit: Wanda in front, Hannah in the middle, Natasha a step behind. It felt less like a family outing and more like a tactical advance. Their first stop was a large, utilitarian store selling bedding and home goods.
“Sheets,” Natasha said, steering Hannah toward an aisle of crisp linens. “You need something durable. Easy to clean.”
Hannah trailed her fingers over a high-thread-count Egyptian cotton set. She recoiled. “Too soft. Like before.”
“Then these,” Wanda said, pointing to a bundle of navy-blue jersey sheets. “They’re basically t-shirt material. They can survive bleach.”
Hannah grabbed the package, hugging it to her chest like a shield. “Okay.”
“Pillows?” Natasha asked.
“Don’t use them.”
“Get one anyway. For the option.” Wanda tossed a firm-looking pillow into the cart.
The clothing store was worse. Racks upon racks of garments created a maze. Hannah’s disorientation turned to a sharp, skittish panic. She bumped into a rack of coats, setting it swaying.
“I can’t—the sounds are too many,” she rasped, pressing the heels of her hands to her ears.
Natasha saw the shift coming—the tightening around Hannah’s eyes, the way her friendly, disarming smile started to twist into something vacant and chilling. The other one was peeking out, overwhelmed by the sensory flood.
“Change of plan,” Natasha said swiftly. She took Hannah’s arm, her grip firm but not restraining. “Wanda, you finish here. Get the basics in her size. Dark colors. Nothing that needs ironing. We’ll wait outside.”
Wanda nodded, a quick glance assessing Hannah’s blankening stare. “The car. Ten minutes.”
Natasha guided Hannah back through the labyrinth, out the giant glass doors, into the marginally quieter dusk of the parking lot. The cold air hit them. Hannah sucked in a gasp, like she was surfacing from deep water.
“Sit,” Natasha said, pointing to a concrete planter ledge.
Hannah sat, folding in on herself, trembling. “The lights… they buzz. And the music. It’s inside my teeth.”
“I know. It’s awful for me too, and I’m not wired like you are.” Natasha didn’t try to touch her. She just stood beside her, a solid barrier between Hannah and the stream of shoppers. “You did good in there. You got the sheets.”
“I’m not good. I’m broken. The other one almost came out.” Hannah’s voice was small, full of a loathing that was years in the making. “You should put me back in a lab. I’m a mess.”
“You’re our mess,” Natasha said, the words leaving her mouth before she could vet them. They weren’t soft. They were possessive. “And we don’t give up on our things.”
Hannah looked up at her, the grey of her eyes reflecting the parking lot lamps. The vacant chill was gone, replaced by a profound, aching confusion. “Why?”
It was the question everything hinged on. Natasha searched for a lawyer’s answer, a strategic truth, and found none. Only the raw, illogical fact. “Because when you thanked me for the window, it was the first real thing you’d given us. And we want more.”
Wanda emerged then, carrying two large bags. She took in the scene—Hannah on the ledge, Natasha standing guard—and her expression remained neutral, but she handed one of the bags to Hannah. “Here. Your uniform.”
The ride home was quiet. Hannah stared out the window, the bags of new, unchosen clothes at her feet. She looked exhausted, the kind of deep fatigue that came from fighting your own mind in a brightly lit battlefield.
After a silent dinner of the venison, seared rare with just salt and pepper, Hannah retreated to her room. They heard the rustle of new sheets, then silence.
In their bedroom, the tension of the day condensed into a thick, electric cloud. Natasha was removing her earrings at the vanity when she felt Wanda’s presence behind her. Not seeing her, just feeling the shift in the air, the heat of a contained storm.
Wanda’s hands came down on Natasha’s shoulders, fingers pressing into the tight muscles. Her touch wasn’t gentle. It was a claim.
“She’s unraveling in public spaces,” Wanda said, her voice low near Natasha’s ear.
“She held it together. She didn’t shift. That’s progress.” Natasha met her wife’s gaze in the mirror.
“Barely.” Wanda’s thumbs dug in, a pain that was almost a relief. “I have a meeting tomorrow. The Bratva from Brighton Beach. They’re getting ambitious. It will require… emphasis.”
Natasha understood. The stress of their new, domestic chaos was colliding with the perpetual stress of Wanda’s empire. The need for control was bleeding from one arena into the other.
“You need an outlet,” Natasha stated, her own pulse beginning to quicken.
Wanda’s hands slid from her shoulders, down her arms, then to the hem of her sweater. In one smooth motion, she pulled it up and over Natasha’s head. The cool air raised goosebumps on her skin. “I need to remember what’s mine. What I can actually control.”
There was no preamble, no soft seduction. This was a reset. A reassertion. Wanda turned Natasha around on the stool and kissed her, a hard, consuming press of lips and teeth that was more about possession than passion. Natasha yielded instantly, a shiver of submission running through her. This was their language, too.
Wanda pushed her back onto the bed, following her down. The straps of Natasha’s bra were snapped open with a sharp tug. Her pants and underwear were stripped away with an efficiency that felt surgical. Wanda stood, looking down at her, her green eyes dark. She unbuckled her own pants, stepping out of them, and retrieved the harness and strap-on from its case in the bedside drawer. The silent ritual of putting it on was familiar, a sight that never failed to make Natasha’s breath catch.
Wanda’s patience was a frayed wire. She didn’t bother with preparation, just grabbed the bottle of lube from the nightstand. The cold gel made Natasha gasp. Wanda’s fingers were intrusive, quick, stretching her open—not for pleasure, but for access. It was almost harsh. It was exactly what Natasha wanted, what she needed to feel: the obliterating simplicity of surrender.
When Wanda entered her, it was with a single, driving thrust that forced the air from Natasha’s lungs. She cried out, her fingers twisting in the crimson silk sheets.
“Quiet,” Wanda growled, her body a tight cage over Natasha’s. “The whole house doesn’t need to hear.”
The command, the violation of it, sent a bolt of pure heat through Natasha. She bit her lip, silencing her moans into choked gasps. Wanda set a punishing rhythm, each thrust a physical punctuation to her frustrations—the Bratva, the defiance, the terrifying vulnerability of the grey-eyed girl down the hall.
“Mine,” Wanda breathed against her neck, the word a hot brand. “This is mine. You understand? This order. This surrender. It’s the only thing that makes sense tonight.”
Natasha could only nod, her vision blurring, her body coiled tight as a spring. The pressure built, sharp and unsustainable, amplified by the raw emotional charge in the room. When she came, it was a silent, shuddering eruption, her body arching off the bed, her mouth open in a soundless scream.
Wanda followed moments later, her own release a sharp, gasped exhale against Natasha’s shoulder. She didn’t collapse, but held herself there, buried deep, until both their heartbeats began to slow from a gallop to a canter.
She withdrew, wordlessly disposing of the strap-on and padding to the ensuite. Natasha heard the shower turn on. She lay sprawled on the ruined sheets, spent and grounded, the metallic taste of her own bitten lip on her tongue. The world had narrowed to this room, this scent, this ache. The chaos was held at bay, for now.
Wanda returned, damp and clean, and slid into bed. She didn’t reach for Natasha, but her presence was a solid line of heat along her back.
Down the hall, Hannah was not asleep. She sat cross-legged in the center of her new jersey sheets, the pillow untouched in the corner. The fabric was coarse against her skin. It was perfect.
She could feel the echo of their… session. The house was old, the walls thick, but her hearing was not entirely human. She’d heard the sharp gasp, the growled command, the heavy silence that followed. It wasn’t sex as she understood it—a transaction, a weapon, a unpleasant necessity. This was different. It was a storm contained in a room. A different kind of hunger being met.
She looked at the new clothes, spilled from the bag onto the floor. Dark pants. Grey shirts. A uniform.
She lay down on the firm mattress, the sheet pulled up to her chin. She stared at the ceiling, listening to the settling bones of the house, to the distant, regular breathing of the two women who had, for reasons utterly beyond her, decided to keep her.
For the first time in a life of cages, the walls around her didn’t feel like they were closing in. They felt like they were holding something in place. Something that might, possibly, be her.
The sheets, though better, were still a lie. They were a suggestion of a sleep she couldn’t afford. The dark hours stretched, hollow and echoing, and the bed felt like a raft adrift on a too-quiet sea. The silence here had a texture, a thick, smothering quality that pressed against her eardrums. It was worse than the sirens and screams of the city. This quiet expected something from her she didn’t know how to give.
She kicked the new sheets off. The cool air of the room kissed her skin. The clothes, the uniform, were another layer of pretense. With a sigh that was almost a growl, she peeled the soft cotton t-shirt and the tactical pants away, leaving them in a heap on the princess bed. The floorboards were smooth, cool, and solid. Real. She lay down on her back, arms at her sides, staring at the ceiling. The hardness against her spine was an anchor. This, she understood.
Sleep, when it came, was a black pit. No dreams, just a cessation. It was in that absolute void that the other one sometimes stirred. Not tonight. Tonight, there was only depthless rest, so complete she didn’t feel the door open. She didn’t hear the nearly silent footsteps approach. She didn’t register the careful hands, the click of the restraint, or the gentle pressure as the leather and steel muzzle was fitted over the lower half of her face, securing behind her head.
She woke to dawn’s grey light and the taste of metal. Her eyes flew open. Panic was a lightning strike, freezing her limbs for one heart-stopping second. Her hand flew to her face, fingers tracing the familiar, dreaded cage over her mouth. A muzzle. Her breath hitched, sharp and loud in the quiet room.
But there was no shock collar. No straps binding her wrists to a cold table. She was on the floor, not a lab gurney. The panic receded, replaced by a cold, clarifying dread. She slowly sat up. The room was empty, but she wasn’t alone. She could feel them.
Wanda stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, already dressed in a tailored black pantsuit, a cup of coffee steaming in her hand. Natasha was beside her, in silk pajamas, her expression unreadable.
“You thleepwalk,” Wanda said, her voice calm, taking a sip of her coffee. “Or, something walks in you. We monitored your vitals. Your REM cycles are… chaotic. The cage isn’t a punishment. It’s a precaution.”
Hannah’s fingers tightened around the bars over her mouth. Shame burned hot behind her eyes. She was naked, muzzled like an animal, exposed on the floor. She drew her knees up to her chest, trying to make herself small.
Natasha took a step into the room. She held a simple glass of water. She placed it on the floor near Hannah, then retreated to Wanda’s side. “You tore your clothes off,” Natasha observed, her tone neutral. “You chose the floor.”
Hannah just stared, her grey eyes wide over the steel.
Wanda set her coffee cup down on the dresser. “The clothes in this house are optional. A suggestion. Not a rule. If you are more comfortable without them, then don’t wear them.” She said it like she was stating a policy change. “The cage stays for sleeping. Until we understand the patterns. The rules are for safety. Your safety. Ours. The rest…” She gestured vaguely at Hannah’s nudity. “Is your business.”
The words didn’t compute at first. They bounced against the cage, against a lifetime of being forced into scratchy gowns and stiff uniforms. Optional. The knot of shame in Hannah’s stomach loosened, replaced by a trembling, disbelieving hope. They saw her. They saw the floor, the torn sheets, the nakedness, and they didn’t see a problem to be corrected. They saw a preference.
A sound escaped her, muffled by the muzzle—a choked, wet gasp. She uncurled, moving from her seated position onto her knees. The movement was fluid, practiced. She bowed forward, pressing her forehead to the cool wood of the floor at their feet. It wasn’t theatrical. It was utter, desperate submission. A thank you in the only language she knew that felt true.
Natasha made a small, pained sound in her throat. Wanda was silent for a long moment. “Get up,” she finally said, her voice softer than its usual edge. “The cage comes off for the day. There are things to do.”
Hannah rose. Wanda produced a small key from her pocket and unlocked the mechanism. The muzzle came away, leaving faint red lines on her cheeks. Hannah licked her lips, her eyes downcast.
“Thank you,” she whispered, the words raw.
“Don’t thank us for basic decency,” Wanda said, turning to leave. “It sets the bar too low.” She paused at the threshold. “The shower is yours. The clothes are yours if you want them. We leave in an hour. You’re coming.”
“Where?” Hannah asked, her voice still rough from sleep and emotion.
Wanda glanced back, a ghost of something almost like challenge in her green eyes. “To see how the world really works.”