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3.3 Trip

I did not see much of the apartment other than the hallway and the bedroom. I was most definitely bored after my fifth day there.

There was not much else to complain about though. He did not touch me inappropriately at all. He slept on the hammock while I slept on the mattress.

Sometimes he would get annoyed at all of my questions.

"Where do you get the money for all of this?"

"I never see you work. Don't you have a job?" Stupid of mine to ask, he was a criminal, for god's sake.

"What about the electricity, somebody should notice that there is this random shed out here that burns a lot?"

"Why did you choose me?"

"How many were there before me?"

I asked him the same questions every day, but I never got an answer. Max only replied to say I should stop asking questions.

Most of the time he would just stare at my face and my body. I did not know why he did that, but he stared without lust in his eyes.

I had seen lust in men's eyes so I knew how to differ. In my previous families there had been the husbands, the sons, the best friends, the cousins, the brothers... I could say that in almost two years that I was away, there had been seven involuntary cases of lust.

The agency had taught me to say yes, and there were contracts that underlined the fact that I was supposed to do everything they asked of me.

The two fathers, the two sons and the two best friends of the family took full advantage of that passage in the contract.

Thinking back to that, I felt gratitude being with Max in a secret apartment underneath a shed. So far he had only violated my choice of where I wanted to be. I hoped that it would stay that way.

"Do you want to see the forest?" he asked me abruptly.

I nodded.

Max led the way outside of the apartment and the shed, and once we were outside, some sort of panic attack came over me.

I was overwhelmed with the almond-brown forest, the creaking trees, and the scurrying squirrels.

The air was so untouched that I could not even breathe it in.

Max noticed and rushed towards me, "Relax, Selena. It is just a forest. It will not hurt you."

"You will though, won't you?" I muttered.

"What I will do to you will hurt you, yes. But you will not be able to feel the pain. It is for your own good," he explained. That was a way to calm me down. Not.

It took me a few minutes, but I eventually put myself together and we started exploring the forest. Actually, we just walked around.

We followed a leaf-carpeted path.

Max took a turn and I followed him. We left the main path for a undefined place. The grass was crispy beneath our feet.

I did not really watch my feet when I walked, so it was only a matter of time until I tripped.

And, well... I did. My head fell on clumps of moss, but I could feel wounds on my knees.

"I did not think you were that clumsy," Max joked as he helped me up.

"Shut up," I shot back. Then he looked down on my knees and his cheerful face changed into a sincerely worried look.

Max literally carried me back to the shed.

There were just a few scratches on my knees, right? I looked down and it seemed messy. It was an accident. You cleaned it up, put something on it, done.

But Max had other plans. He put a blindfold on me.

"What are you doing?" I asked, kicking him with my hands. Then he grabbed my wrists and I heard a click. Max put me in handcuffs as well.

And then he carried me into a room I had never been in before. I knew that because he unlocked a door to get in there. I had no access to those rooms.

He laid me down on some sort of cold hard surface. I moved my body as much as I could. I wanted out.

"Stop moving, or I will put you in more chains," Max warned me.