Stolen

Ty warns Gemma that she’ll die out in the desert if she tries to run. He drags her back and locks her in the bathroom. She throws everything she can find at the door. He insists he won’t kill her, but she doesn’t believe him. She picks up a shard of glass from the shattered bottle and holds it to her wrist. She slits a line and starts to bleed before starting on the second wrist. He bursts into the bathroom and takes the glass away from her. She fights against him, hits her head, and blacks out.

She wakes up tied to the bed with her wounds bandaged. She cries and feels despair. She rejects the food and water he brings her. Her wounds start to heal. He asks her to go outside and look at the land. She finally acquiesces, wanting to get out of the room and look for ways to escape.

He takes her to see two large boulders that stick out of the landscape. He has named them the Separates, as they feel separate from the land. He tells her again that there’s no escape. He tells her about how he found this place when he was a kid and camped here, living off the water from the rocks. She asks why he brought her here, and he explains that she’s like the land, “beautifully separate,” and he wants company. He plans to keep her here forever.

He shows her the generator. She considers trying to kill him with a lantern. He takes her back to her room and shows her the clothes he bought for her. He shows her his room, where he plans to sleep “for now,” as well as various books and supplies. She realizes from the field guides that they’re in Australia. She tries to threaten him. Her parents will be looking for her and posting her picture on the news. Cameras must have caught him kidnapping her. He insists she was hidden under a tarp for most of the way. The desert is unmapped. He tries to convince her that she enjoyed the kidnapping and that she was obliging. She remembers laughing and wanting to kiss him in her drugged state.

She waits in the dark, worried he’s going to come in and do something to her. She dreams she is pressed outside the window, watching her parents speak to the police. She wakes up and looks around the house, searching for the car keys or a weapon. She finds a locked drawer, takes a butter knife, and hides it under the bed. He finds her in the pantry and explains that there’s enough food to last a long time. They’ll go hunting and find a camel later. She tries to open the locked drawer, and he drags her back to her room.

She starts keeping track of the days with notches on the bed. She observes his routine. She finally eats a meal with him and asks what he does all day. He agrees to show her if she promises not to try running away again.

She follows him the next morning as he looks for a snake that has disappeared under the house. He shows her the solar panels and shriveled herb garden. She asks him what the desert is called, and he laughs hysterically at its name: Sandy Desert. He shows her different plants and explains that the sand is millions of years old. He takes her to the outbuilding and shoves her inside. She suddenly feels terrified that he’s going to kill her and starts screaming. He yells at her to stay still or she’ll “ruin it.” She screams and crawls through something wet and scratchy. He finally pulls open the curtains, revealing a room covered in paint and dried plants. She waits, tense, for him to attack her. Instead, he cries.

He reveals that he has been making this painting for a long time. It has shapes taken from the land and paint made from rocks and plants. He decides that the painting is better now with the new pattern she has made through it. She begins to see him as someone who appears to have a mental health condition. She calmly asks him to let her go. He agrees but tells her he’ll save her when she gets lost. She exits the shed and runs toward the Separates.

She discovers a new landscape there, with more trees and bushes. She finds the chickens he mentioned and looks for eggs. She nearly walks into a pool full of water surrounded by trees. She wants to drink, but she isn’t sure it’s safe. She realizes the pipe from the house leads to this pool and nowhere else. They really are off-grid. She climbs a tree and looks out at the landscape. She is shocked to discover nothing there: no buildings or roads. She feels despair.

She hears the car and realizes he is putting up a fence to box her in. It starts to get cold and dark. She shivers as she tries to find a way through the fence. The stars shine brilliantly overhead, giving her hope. While his car is on the other side of the rock, she dashes to the fence and tries to find a way over it, under it, or through it. He finally corners her and drags her back, freezing, to the house. She feels despair and withdraws emotionally. She dreams of her friends and family but continues to sink into the dark parts of her mind. She is distressed when she realizes that certain details about her past life are starting to drift away.

Ty tries to talk to Gemma, but she has gone silent. He recalls how once he went silent too, just after he had discovered this place. He notices her looking at his scar and recalls how a net can cut into skin. He recognizes that she is “not so dead” (77). He leaves a journal on the nightstand. She tries drawing people from her life and then writing.

She sees him examining bottles and needles from the locked drawer and realizes it is full of drugs. He tries to talk to her and asks her questions about her life. She refuses to engage with him. He tries to argue that it’s nicer out here than in the city. She counters that she misses it. She learns the kinds of comments she can make to hurt him.

She finally asks him how long he had been planning the kidnapping and he reveals he watched her for six years since she was 10. She has vague, half-memories about him but can’t quite place anything.

She asks him who he is. He begins his life story. His mother was from a posh English family and had him young. She signed him over to his Australian dad, and he moved out to a remote farm, learning the land from local Aboriginal Australians. There were no other kids around. His father stopped caring for him, and Ty ran wild in the bush, subsisting on lizard meat. His dad developed a drug and alcohol addiction. Ty lived by himself on the farm for about a year until the state came and caught him with a net. They put him in a group home, and he learned to fight. Gemma points out that he was stolen, too. He insists that he saved her.

She dreams of a memory of herself in the park running away from Josh Holmes, only this time, it is Ty following her. She throws herself into the pond. The next morning, she watches Ty punch a punching bag and imagines killing him.

He takes her to see the Separates. He considers them a spiritual place and greets them when they enter. He points out the trees and plants that provide food, shelter, and water. He takes off his shirt and wades into the pool to check the spring. She feels conflicted about his muscular body; it’s attractive, but the strength is a threat.