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the house. Most of the doors won’t open without a code as you know, and the ones that do aren’t a way to escape. As a matter of fact, some of the doors that do open might frighten you. Some of them might thrill you. You’ll have to let me know which does which when I come to collect you. And tonight, you and I will start your lessons. Much like the doors, some you will enjoy and some will scare you. But it will be up to me, not you Riley, to decide which ones are the most tolerable and intolerable for you,” he said in a low, serious tone.
    “Agreed,” I whispered in a shaky voice.
    He nodded and let go of my wrists. I began to rub them as I wondered what the hell I was going to have to endure to gain my freedom.
    “The sun goes down in four hours. You have until then,” Jax said before he turned and walked away.

Nine
    I spent the first hour of my “freedom” exploring the second floor. By exploring, I meant punching in every combination of numbers I could think to open the damn windows, but I always managed to lock the pads after the third try. I knew he would be most likely be angry when he realized what I had spent this time doing, but he would also be dense to not assume that I wouldn’t try.
    After I had sufficiently tripped the safety backup on all of the code pads, I made my way down the stairs. Jax had gone back to the living room and I could hear him watching something again. From the sounds of the screams, I assumed it to be a horror movie of some sort. Figures, I thought rolling my eyes.
    I tiptoed past the living room and followed the wide hallway into the kitchen. I looked around curious at how immaculate it was. It looks like it’s never even been used. Okay; he’s a neat freak. Check.
    Behind me, I heard his footsteps as he made his way to the kitchen. He walked past me without so much as a glance and reached into the large restaurant sized refrigerator for ... what is that?
    He set the slab of meat on the counter and reached up into one of the beautiful oak cabinets to pull out a loaf of bread. I watched as he sat down on one of the stools and put at least six slices of the meat onto the two slices of bread, before going back to the refrigerator to replace the meat and pull out a bag of lettuce and some mayonnaise. After putting three pieces of lettuce on his growing sandwich, he opened a drawer under the counter he was sitting at, pulled out a knife and applied a thin layer of mayo to it. I had never found the making of a sandwich to be as intriguing as the way Jax did it because he actually held it up eye level, put it down, and cut the excess lettuce that was peeking out of the sides off, before he was satisfied enough to return the bag and the mayo back to the refrigerator.
    My eyes wandered to the knife on the counter. It was sharp enough to ... hurt. Jax drummed his fingers along the top of the fridge while he stood in front of it looking for something else. I moved closer to the counter, never taking my eyes off of the knife. If I can get my hands on it I can force him to let me out.
    “If you’re planning on sticking me, I would hope you’d think to use a better knife than that, Riley,” he said, still engrossed in the contents of the fridge. “Something larger, sharper; something that would make me wonder if I was going to survive the attack. Not a knife used to spread condiments on a sandwich.”
    He shook his head in amusement, before he finally pulled out a big plastic jug of water and came back to the counter. Setting it down, he reached for the knife and cut the sandwich in half, then held it out to me.
    “If you want to have a go, please do. But make sure that I don’t survive, Riley. I’d be quite upset if you attacked me and left me with scars,” he warned seriously.
    Take the knife and ram it through his throat! my inner heroine screamed.
    “No thank you,” I replied to him and her. I pulled my shirt around myself again and stood there for a moment. “Jax, can I ask