2133

3.2 Convincing

I thought about my situation. It kind of excited me that I was free of the agency. They had been a burden, a heavy weight on my shoulder that kept dragging me down.

But just as I was about to jump around happily, I remembered that a strange man had kidnapped me, and held me against my will in a shed in a forest somewhere in a rural area.

Could what he had planned for me be worse than what the agency forced me to do?

I decided to explore the bed room. Aside from the mattress and the hammock, there was nothing else in the room. So I thought.

I moved the mattress in hopes to find something underneath it, and accidentally found an ID card. I knew those cards. I had one, too. It was the proof that I was a certified order working for the agency.

The surname of the woman pictured on the ID card was Lanotte and she was 36 years old. On the back of the card it said that she was healthy and had a daughter called Stella Lanotte.

I stepped out of the room, looking for Max. He had to explain a few things to me.

All the doors were locked. So I waited in the hallway. Finally, he appeared. "I thought you wanted to sleep."

"Who is this Lanotte woman?" I asked him.

"Where did you find this?" he inquired. Max did not like the fact that I found the ID card.

"It was underneath the mattress," I answered. "It was not that hard to find it."

"It is none of your business," he muttered, dismissing me.

"Well, it is if you plan on doing what you did to her to me! Is she even still alive? Why was her ID under the mattress?" I was beyond curious, my arms were shrugged in front of my chest.

Max put on the most convincing face he could and stated, "She was a one-night-stand. I bound her eyes so that she did not know where we were headed. I f.ucked her and she forgot her ID. I never returned it to her because that would have been too dangerous. I do not do the same girl twice."

Max did not answer the entire question.

"I do not believe you, you know," I told him. He looked young, not as young as me, but still. It was always the other way around in our society. The older men slept with the younger women. "Why would you be sleeping with a 36-year-old woman?"

"I am 33. I sleep with whoever I want to sleep with," he uttered. Max looked at me. "Maybe it was wrong to take you."

"I absolutely think so. Now please take me back home," I said.

"You do not understand. It is either this, or death for you, Selena." How did he know my name? He probably had it all planned out, stupid. There was a high chance that Max knew every thing about me. "You have seen too much now. You could impose a great danger for me out there."

"Trust me, I am not the kind of girl who tells on people. I promise to not tell anyone," I declared. "Just take me back."

"Now I am not convinced," he stated.

"I promise you. If anybody ever finds out, you can come kill me all you want. But I do not plan on telling anyone."

"I believe you in that case, Selena. But you are not convincing in the fact that you want to go back to the agency," Max said.

He had seen through me.