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3.5 Name

The other day, he asked me, "Do you have back problems?"

That was one of the most absurd questions ever.

"No, I do not. I am completely healthy. That is what the agency says," I answered. "They say my only problem is that I gain too much weight during pregnancy. I was like 22 pounds heavier after the first one."

"Do not believe everything they tell you," he assured me.

"I do not."

All of a sudden, after days of silence, Max started asking me questions. The tables turned, but I could not stay silent. I answered every question. I knew he was doing it to shut me up with my annoying questions.

We were sitting in front of the shed, the moon was about to come out.

"Do you have family?"

I replied, "My mother died when I was young. I think I have a brother outside of the agency, there were some documents in my mother's things that said so. Who knows, maybe he is dead. Other than that, I am alone."

"I always ask myself how you do it. Most of you grow up alone in a room without any parental supervsion," he said.

"We do not know any other way. They are the circumstances that shape us to become independent and lonely. When we are out there in the cities, nobody has our backs," I explained to him. "So the ones who grow up the hardest, have it the easiest with the rich families. We are used to being on our own and having no friends or family."

"If your brother was still out there, would you look for him?" he asked me.

"I do not know... Perhaps. But it is highly unlikely that I would ever find him. I only know that his name is Liam, and that they took him from my mother right after she gave birth to him in the agency," I told him. I looked at him in curiosity. "Am I ever going to return to the agency?"

"If you act stupid, then you will," he replied. What was that supposed to mean?

"So if I misbehave you will take me back?"

"No. If you misbehave, I will have to kill you." He talked about me like I was an experiment. "I repeat, if you act stupid, you will eventually return to the agency. You do not want to know what they will do to you then."

"I have an idea," I muttered. They would probably drug me up with hormones, take all the genetic material they can get from me, including egg cells and then they would kill me. I had heard of that procedure.

"Can you please tell me something about you?" I asked him. I did not want to think about what the agency's punishment would be.

"My family is dead. Max Bentley is my real name, but you will not find it anywhere online. I have been erased from the system. It is like I do not exist," he explained.

"What else? How long have you been doing this?" I insisted on knowing.

"I can't tell you. There are things I have to keep to myself until I am sure that you can be trusted," Max said. "And I would prefer it if you called me Mr. Bentley. It has a nice authoritarian ring to it."

"You will never let me go, so why not trust me? Are you trying to distract me, Mr. Bentley?" I asked him. I was trying to gain his trust, but calling him Mr. Bentley sort of showed that I had gained respect for him in a crazy way.

Something in his eyes changed when I called him that name. It was a look I had seen before.

- I do not know about you, but it was about time she started calling him Mr. Bentley! I missed it haha with Mr. James & Mr. Tomlinson it was so easy to include it...-