Chapter 4: The Bathing Ritual
The steam in the guest bathroom was thick enough to taste, fogging the gold-veined mirrors. Hannah stood directly under the downpour, water sluicing over her close-cropped grey hair and down her narrow back. She wasn’t moving. Just standing there, head slightly bowed, letting the heat soak into skin that had a permanent, wan undertone, like concrete under a overcast sky.
Natasha watched from the doorway for a full minute, a clean towel folded over her arm. The girl wasn’t washing. She was just… existing in the spray. There was a helplessness to it that bypassed irritation and went straight to a dull ache in Natasha’s chest. This was a creature who knew how to field-dress a deer but not how to use body wash.
With a soft sigh that vanished into the hiss of the water, Natasha set the towel down on the closed toilet lid. She didn’t announce herself. She simply unzipped her silk pajama top, let it slip from her shoulders, and stepped out of the matching pants. The air in the room was warm, but still cooler than the shower. Goosebumps raised on her arms.
She slid the glass door open. Hannah flinched, a full-body jerk, whirling around with eyes wide and wild. For a second, the other one was right there, a flash of animal panic in the grey irises. Then she recognized Natasha, and the tension didn’t leave so much as it transformed. Her gaze dropped, then dragged back up, slowly, taking in Natasha’s naked form.
Natasha was used to being looked at in court—assessed, judged, scrutinized. This was different. Hannah’s stare was a physical touch, unabashed and intense. It traced the curve of Natasha’s shoulder, the slope of a breast, the lean muscle of her abdomen, the faint silver lines of old, faded scars. It lingered on the junction of her thighs. There was a hunger in it, but not a sexual one. It was a cataloguing. A comparison. A deep, unsettling curiosity about the topography of a normal, mature body.
“See something you like?” Natasha’s voice was flat, cutting through the steam. She reached past Hannah for the bottle of rosemary-mint shampoo.
Hannah’s eyes snapped up to meet hers. No shame. Just that bright, unsettling curiosity. “You’re put together different. Softer in some places. Hard in others. The scars are old. Faded. Mine aren’t like that.”
“No,” Natasha agreed, her tone leaving no room for further commentary. “Turn around.”
A command. Hannah obeyed, presenting her back. The water plastered her short hair to her skull, revealing the delicate knobs of her vertebrae. Natasha poured shampoo into her palm.
“This is for hair. You work it in, then rinse. Like this.” Her fingers massaged the soap into Hannah’s scalp. The girl went absolutely still, her breath hitching. The touch was clinical, instructional, but Hannah’s head leaned back almost imperceptibly into the pressure. A tiny, yearning movement.
“Okay,” Hannah whispered.
Natasha rinsed, the white suds swirling down the drain. Next, the body wash. She poured a generous amount onto a soft, navy loofah. “Arms out.”
Hannah lifted her arms, straight out to her sides like a scarecrow. Her trust was absolute, and terrifying in its completeness. Natasha began to scrub, starting at the shoulders. The loofah moved over sharp collarbones, down the pronounced ribs of a body that had known more hunger than plenty. Hannah’s skin, under the grime, was pale and surprisingly smooth.
Natasha worked methodically, her lawyer’s mind organizing the task into sections: front, back, limbs. She was thorough. When she moved the loofah over Hannah’s small breasts, the girl didn’t react. When she scrubbed down her flat stomach, Hannah just watched, her head tilted.
But when Natasha knelt on the wet tiles, the loofah moving down the outside of a slender thigh, Hannah’s breathing changed. It shallowed. Natasha looked up. Hannah was staring down at her, the water running over her face, her expression unreadable. The intensity was back, but clouded now with something else—confusion, maybe, or a deep-seated wariness about being this clean, this exposed.
Natasha’s hand paused, the loofah resting on the inside of Hannah’s thigh. The touch was deliberate. A test. The air, thick with steam and rosemary, seemed to crackle.
“Behave,” Natasha said. Her voice was low, firm. It wasn’t a request. It was the same tone she used when a witness was evading on the stand. A reminder of the hierarchy in this tiny, glass-walled box.
A tremor went through Hannah. Her gaze dropped from Natasha’s eyes to the floor, a swift, submissive gesture. The tension bled out of her rigid posture. She nodded, once.
Natasha finished the task with efficient, impersonal strokes. She stood, her knees popping slightly, and rinsed the suds from Hannah’s body. “That’s how you do it. Every day. Your turn.”
She handed the loofah to Hannah and stepped out of the shower stream, reaching for the towel to wrap around herself. She didn’t leave. She leaned against the counter, watching as Hannah, moving with hesitant, deliberate motions, mimicked the routine. She was a fast learner. The loofah moved over skin now pink from scrubbing.
“Why?” Hannah asked suddenly, not looking at her, focusing on scrubbing her forearm. “Why did you do that?”
“You were dirty.”
“I’ve been dirty before.”
“Not in my house,” Natasha said simply. “The rules include basic hygiene. It’s non-negotiable.”
Hannah was silent for a while, rinsing off. She shut off the water. The sudden quiet was heavy. Natasha handed her the large, clean towel. Hannah wrapped it around herself, hiding her body, but her eyes stayed on Natasha.
“Wanda said we’re going out. To see how the world works.”
“We are.”
“Is it… is it like the mall?”
“No.” Natasha brushed her wet red hair back from her face. “The mall is the world pretending. This will be the world without the pretense. Get dressed. The clothes are a suggestion. But you will be dressed.”
Twenty minutes later, they were in the back of the armored SUV. Viktor drove. Wanda sat in the passenger seat, a tablet on her knee, scanning documents. She was in full armor, metaphorically speaking: the severe black suit, hair in a perfect twist, a look of cold focus that made the interior of the car feel several degrees colder.
Hannah sat between Natasha and the door. She’d chosen the clothes—the black cargo pants and a grey t-shirt. They hung on her slender frame, but she’d rolled the sleeves and cuffs with a meticulous precision that spoke of military observation or institutional habit. She was vibrating with a nervous energy, her fingers tapping a silent, rapid rhythm on her thigh.
They drove into a part of the city the guidebooks didn’t cover. The sleek glass towers gave way to crumbling brick warehouses and rusted chain-link fences. Viktor pulled into the
The sleek glass towers gave way to crumbling brick warehouses and rusted chain-link fences. Viktor pulled into the cracked asphalt lot of a nondescript packing plant, the sign above the door weathered down to unreadable ghost letters. The engine cut, leaving a thick silence broken only by the distant whine of a forklift.
Hannah’s nervous tapping increased to a frantic staccato against her thigh. She pressed her knees together tightly, a subtle motion Natasha noticed from the corner of her eye. The girl’s breathing had gone shallow and quick.
“You good back there?” Wanda asked, not turning around, her focus still on her tablet.
“Yep,” Hannah chirped, the word too high, too fast. “Peachy. Just… new place. Lots of smells. Oil, rats, stale sweat. It’s interesting.”
Natasha smelled only concrete dust and damp. “Stay close. Don’t speak unless spoken to. Watch everything.”
“I always watch everything,” Hannah murmured, her gaze darting across the lot, cataloguing exits, shadows, potential threats. Her body gave a small, involuntary jerk.
Wanda finally turned, her green eyes sweeping over Hannah’s pinched face and rigid posture. “If you need to vomit, do it outside the car. Not during.”
“I don’t need to vomit,” Hannah said, but her voice was strained. A faint, warm, acrid scent began to permeate the enclosed space of the SUV, cutting through the leather and air conditioning.
Natasha’s nose wrinkled. She looked down. A dark, spreading patch bloomed across the grey fabric of Hannah’s cargo pants, starting at her crotch and soaking downward along the inner seams. A small puddle began to form on the immaculate leather seat beneath her.
Hannah followed her gaze. She went perfectly still. Her wide eyes filled not with shame, but with a kind of defensive, feral panic. “It’s… it’s just urine. It’s sterile. Mostly.”
“What the hell, kid?” Wanda’s voice was a whip-crack of cold displeasure.
“I had to go,” Hannah stated, as if explaining a basic law of physics. Her chin lifted in defiance, but a tremble in her hands betrayed her. “I didn’t know where to… you didn’t show me the forest. The shower was for cleaning, not for… that. I usually just go where I am. On a tree. Or if someone’s bothering me, on them. It’s a good deterrent.”
The clinical, horrifying explanation hung in the fetid air. Natasha’s maternal instinct collided violently with a wave of sheer practicality. This wasn’t defiance. It was a grotesque gap in basic human socialization.
“You’ve been in the house for days,” Natasha said, keeping her voice calm, logical. “You’ve used the bathroom. You’ve seen the toilet.”
“That’s a fancy porcelain bowl for holding flowers, isn’t it?” Hannah shot back, confusion now mingling with her defensiveness. “Or for getting sick in. The lab toilets were holes in the floor you squatted over. The ones in juvie were metal and always clogged. I don’t use those. They’re… loud.”
Wanda pinched the bridge of her nose, exhaling slowly. The meeting inside was with impatient, dangerous men. This was a catastrophic delay. “Viktor. The contingency bag. Now.”
Viktor, without a word of judgement or a change in expression, popped the trunk and retrieved a small black duffel. He handed it to Wanda, who unzipped it with sharp movements. Inside were wet wipes, a roll of small black garbage bags, a towel, and a spare pair of soft, black joggers.
“Out,” Wanda commanded, opening her door.
Hannah scrambled out, the wet fabric of her pants clinging unpleasantly to her legs. She stood awkwardly on the asphalt, a dark stain spreading down her inner thighs. Wanda threw the towel and the clean pants at her. “Clean yourself up with the wipes. Use the bag for the soiled clothes. Do it now, behind the car. You have ninety seconds.”
Hannah didn’t hesitate. She ducked behind the vehicle’s bulk, a flurry of movement. Natasha got out, leaning against the side of the SUV, watching the warehouse door. “She wasn’t being difficult,” Natasha said quietly.
“I know,” Wanda replied, her voice low and taut. “That’s the problem. It’s a hundred problems we didn’t price in. We’re about to walk into a room with men who would skin her alive for fun, and I’m teaching her basic bladder control in a parking lot.”
From behind the car, they heard the rustle of fabric, the rip of a wet wipe package. A moment later, Hannah emerged. The clean black joggers were too long, pooling over her bare feet, but they were dry. She clutched the tightly knotted garbage bag containing her soaked clothes in one hand, her face a careful, blank mask.
“I’m ready,” she said. Her voice was small, but clear.
Wanda looked her up and down. “The lesson, for future reference: the porcelain bowl is for this. You sit on it. You go. You flush. It is silent, and it keeps you from smelling like a barnyard. Understood?”
Hannah nodded once, sharply. “Understood. Silent bowl.”
“Leave the bag in the car. Follow my lead. Not a word.” Wanda turned and strode toward a side entrance, her heels clicking on the asphalt with definitive authority.
Hannah dropped the bag through the open window onto the seat, her movements quick and precise. She fell into step behind Wanda, a pale, silent shadow. Natasha took the rear, her mind already compartmentalizing the incident, filing it away under ‘urgent training required.’
As they approached the door, Hannah’s head lifted. She sniffed the air, her nostrils flaring. The scent of her own accident was gone from her person, replaced by clean cotton and lavender soap. But her grey eyes were brighter, more focused, scanning the dim entryway.
“Blood in the air,” she whispered, so softly only Natasha behind her could hear. “Old blood. Under the bleach. And men who are… annoyed.”
Wanda pushed the steel door open without knocking. The warehouse interior was a cavern of shadows, lit by pendant lamps hanging over a central clearing. Four men stood around a metal table. The man at its head was large, with a shaved head and a gold tooth that glinted. He looked at his watch pointedly.
“You’re late, Maximoff.”
“Traffic,” Wanda said, her voice smooth as polished stone. She didn’t introduce her companions. She simply took the empty chair opposite him, making herself the focal point.
Hannah drifted to the edge of the lit circle, blending into the gloom near a stack of wooden pallets. She stood perfectly still, but her eyes were everywhere, missing nothing. Natasha positioned herself slightly behind Wanda’s right shoulder, a silent sentinel.
The gold-toothed man, Josef, gestured to the table. “The shipment from Miami was light. Twenty percent light. Your people oversaw the transfer.”
“My people counted it twice in the hold,” Wanda countered, her fingers steepled. “The lightening happened on the last leg. Your leg. Are your docks porous, Josef? Or are your fingers sticky?”
One of Josef’s men, a wiry guy with neck tattoos, shifted his weight. His hand drifted toward the small of his back. The movement was subtle, practiced.
From the shadows, Hannah’s head tilted. A low, almost inaudible sound vibrated in her throat. It wasn’t a growl. It was the sound a crow makes before it scavenges.
The man with the neck tattoos froze. He glanced toward the darkness, squinting, unable to see the source of the primal warning. He slowly moved his hand away, back to his side.
Josev’s eyes narrowed, flicking from Wanda’s impassive face to the shadows where Hannah stood. “I don’t like new faces in these talks,” he said, his tone dripping with menace.
“She’s not a face,” Wanda replied, not even bothering to look. “She’s ambiance. You were accusing me of theft. Present your proof, or pay the balance you owe. My tolerance for your amateur theatrics is exhausted.”
The tension in the room spiked, a live wire dangling between them. Josef’s jaw worked. He was calculating, weighing the bluster against the cold certainty seated before him, and the unsettling, watchful presence in the dark.
Hannah took a single, silent step forward, just to the edge of the light. The pendant lamp cast sharp shadows across her pale, impassive face and those unsettlingly bright eyes. She stared directly at Josef, unblinking. A faint, disarming smile touched her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes, which held a flat, chilling emptiness.
She slowly raised a hand and mimed scratching her own neck, precisely where the tattooed man had his ink. Then she drew a single finger across her throat in a line so casual it was more terrifying than any shout.
The message was received. Josef’s bravado visibly deflated. He leaned back, waving a dismissive hand. “A misunderstanding. The balance will be wired by noon.”
“See that it is,” Wanda said, rising smoothly. She turned and walked towards the door, not checking to see if the others followed.
Natasha did, her posture relaxed but her senses screaming. Hannah melted back from the light and fell in behind them, a ghost returning to its haunt. As the steel door clanged shut behind them, cutting off the warehouse gloom, the bright daylight of the lot felt alien and harsh.
They walked to the SUV in silence. Viktor had the engine running. Only when the doors were shut and the vehicle began to move did Wanda speak.
“The gesture with the neck,” Wanda said, looking ahead at the road. “Theatrical. But effective.”
From the back seat, now on a towel Natasha had laid down, Hannah shrugged. “He was the leverage point. The boss was all talk. The helper with the gun was the real nerve. I just… pressed it.”
She looked down at her new, clean pants, then out the window at the passing city. Her voice was quiet, pensive. “The silent bowl is a better system. More… civilized. I’ll use that next time.”
Natasha reached over, not touching her, but placing her hand palm-up on the seat between them. An offering. Hannah looked at it, then slowly, hesitantly, placed her own cold hand on top. She didn’t intertwine their fingers. She just let it rest there, a point of contact, a grounding weight.
Wanda watched the exchange in the rearview mirror, her expression inscrutable. “See that you do,” she said, and turned her gaze back to the city streets, already planning the next lesson, the next test, the next necessary step in domesticating the wild, dangerous creature they had brought into their den.
The SUV’s quiet hum was the only sound on the drive back. Hannah kept her hand resting on Natasha’s for five full blocks before withdrawing, tucking it under her thigh as if hiding evidence. The rest of the week passed in a strange, tentative rhythm. Wanda drilled Hannah on household rules with the cold precision of a field commander. The silent porcelain bowl was mastered after one direct, observational tutorial where Wanda simply used it herself, explaining nothing. Hannah watched, understood, and replicated the process perfectly. She was an impeccable mimic.
“It’s quieter than a tree,” Hannah noted approvingly, flushing. “No bugs.”
Friday arrived. Wanda stood in the foyer with a small leather duffel, her profile sharp against the morning light. “The summit in Montreal is two days. Negotiations. Viktor will drive. You will listen to Natasha.”
Hannah, perched on the bottom stair in her now-customary grey t-shirt and bare feet, nodded. “What do I do?”
“You exist without setting anything on fire,” Wanda said, her tone dry. She walked over to Hannah, crouching to meet her eyes. The gesture was startlingly direct. “The cage at night is not optional. Natasha will secure it. Your compliance in this is the only thing that allows me to walk out that door. Do you comprehend the transaction?”
Hannah held her gaze, the unsettling brightness in her own eyes flickering with understanding. “My compliance for your trust.”
“Yes.” Wanda stood, brushing non-existent lint from her suit jacket. She turned to Natasha, and for a fraction of a second, the armor cracked. A silent look passed between them, full of unspoken contingencies and a wire-tight concern. Then it was gone. She leaned in, kissing Natasha with a firm, possessive certainty. “Keep the chaos contained, my love.”
And then she was gone. The house sighed into a different kind of quiet, one less charged with imminent threat but more profoundly empty. Natasha felt the weight of sole responsibility settle on her shoulders. Hannah seemed to feel it too, wandering the halls like a ghost, touching things without picking them up.
The first day was deceptively calm. They read in the library. Natasha prepared simple meals Hannah ate with focused, silent efficiency. As dusk bled into night, Natasha performed the new ritual. “It’s time.”
Hannah followed her to the guest room without a word. She sat on the floor while Natasha retrieved the muzzle from the dresser. The girl tipped her head back, exposing her throat, and accepted the steel and leather with a slow blink. The click of the lock was loud in the quiet room. Natasha’s fingers lingered for a second against Hannah’s cheek, feeling the frantic bird-beat of her pulse beneath the skin. “Sleep well.”
Natasha retreated to her own bedroom, the mansion feeling vast and echoing. She read for an hour, the silence pressing in. She told herself the compliance was a good sign. She told herself the system was working.
Hannah waited until the deep, resonant quiet of 2 AM seeped into the walls. She listened to the settling creaks, the distant hum of the refrigerator, the absent sound of Wanda’s presence. The cage over her mouth itched. The need itched more, a deep, coiling hunger in her gut that had nothing to do with food. The soft, stupid house was full of sleeping heartbeats, but that was forbidden. The forest, however, was a grey area in the rules.
With a twist of her wrists, she popped the simple lock on her bedroom window—a skill learned in far less comfortable institutions. The night air was cool and smelled of pine and damp earth. She slipped out, a pale shadow in the moonlight, and vanished into the tree line.
Natasha woke to a sound that wasn’t a sound. It was a feeling. A primal shift in the atmosphere of the house. The digital clock read 4:17 AM. She rose, pulling on her robe, a cold knot in her stomach. She checked the guest room first. The empty bed, the open window, the muzzle lying discarded on the floorboards. “Damn it,” she whispered, the word hot and sharp.
She was halfway to the kitchen, debating calling Viktor, when the patio door slid open with a soft whisper.
Hannah stood silhouetted against the pre-dawn gloom, naked and gleaming. Blood painted her in abstract, violent strokes—dark across her chest and arms, smeared over her thighs and stomach. It was fresh, glistening under the kitchen’s under-cabinet lights. The coppery, rich smell of it filled the room, overwhelming the clean scents of lemon and marble. Clumps of wet, dark fur were stuck to her calves.
She padded silently across the cool floor, leaving faint, rusty footprints. She stopped before Natasha, then slowly lowered herself to her knees. She looked up, her grey eyes enormous in her pale, blood-streaked face. Her expression was neither defiant nor pleased. It was simply factual. Waiting.
Natasha stared. The visceral shock was a punch to the lungs. This was the unvarnished truth of the creature they’d brought home, a truth no amount of tactical pants or toilet training could mask. The hunger. The feed.
“You lied about the toilet,” Natasha finally said, her voice hollow.
“I use the forest,” Hannah replied, her tone eerily conversational, as if discussing the weather. “It’s efficient. I go.I hunt. I feed. The rabbit was fast. Not fast enough.” She looked down at herself, then back up, as if just noticing the state she was in. “It’s messy. I don’t… I don’t know how to get it off. The shower confuses me when it’s like this.”
Natasha closed her eyes. She took a long, slow breath, pushing down the tremor in her hands. When she opened them, her lawyer’s composure was back, a thin veneer over a churning sea of disbelief and a fierce, undeniable pity. “Come on,” she sighed, the word heavy with exhaustion.
She turned and walked toward the guest bathroom. Hannah rose and followed, her bare feet silent on the hardwood. In the bathroom, Natasha turned the shower on, testing the temperature. She didn’t bother with modesty or commentary. She simply took Hannah by the shoulder and guided her under the spray.
The water ran pink, then crimson, swirling in violent patterns down the drain. Natasha took the loofah and the strong, pine-scented soap she now kept for this purpose. She scrubbed with the same methodical detachment as before, but this time the act was profound. She was washing away evidence, yes, but also an entire worldview. She scrubbed the blood from under fingernails, from the delicate shells of ears, from the sharp line of a jaw.
Hannah stood passively, head bowed, submitting to the cleansing. When Natasha finished, the water finally running clear, she handed Hannah a towel. The girl stepped out, dripping, and dried herself without being told. She stood there, naked and clean, the pallor of her skin almost luminous in the low light. She looked younger, more broken. More human.
“The clothes are a suggestion,” Natasha repeated, her earlier rule feeling flimsy now. “You can be naked in your room. If you’re comfortable.”
Hannah’s shoulders loosened almost imperceptibly. A tiny, raw relief. “Thank you,” she whispered, the words holding more weight than any she’d uttered before.
Natasha pointed down the hall. “Go. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Hannah obeyed, padding back to her room. Natasha cleaned the bathroom, wiping down every surface, her movements automatic. She followed the faint footprints on the floor and wiped them away too, erasing the night’s journey. Then she went to Hannah’s room.
Hannah was on her knees again, in the center of the floor, waiting. The bloody clothes were gone, likely tossed out the window into some dark thicket. Natasha picked up the muzzle. Hannah lifted her chin. The lock clicked shut once more.
“The forest is off-limits at night,” Natasha stated, her voice leaving no room for debate. “That is a new rule. You broke trust.”
Hannah just blinked, her eyes over the cage. There was no argument.
Natasha turned and left, closing the door softly behind her. She leaned against it in the dark hallway, her own heartbeat loud in her ears. She listened. She heard the soft shuffle of movement inside. Then silence.
Inside the room, Hannah watched the door. She listened to Natasha’s footsteps fade down the hall. She reached up and touched the cold bars over her mouth. She then lay down on the floor, curling onto her side on the firm, unforgiving wood. She pressed her cheek against the grain, inhaled the scent of polish and her own clean skin, and closed her eyes. The cage was a boundary. The floor was a truth. The cleaning had been a baptism. For the first time, sleep came quickly, dragging her down into a dreamless void where no rabbits ran.