Stolen

Ty and Gemma stop for a picnic. He pours her a glass of sparkling wine to celebrate her 21st day with him, but she pours the glass into the dirt. They argue again about whether he has kidnapped her or saved her. They spot the camels and chase after them in the car. He asks her to pass him tools and take the wheel while he lassoes the camel, and she does. They catch the camel, and he ties the camel up while she moans horribly for her herd. Gemma, similarly trapped, feels connected to the camel. Just when Ty thinks he’s done, the camel throws up on his head. He throws up as well, and then Gemma throws up too. They drive back covered in the stench. The camel trots behind them, having gotten her revenge in some small way.

Back at the complex, he builds a pen for the camel. He shows Gemma how to lead the camel around. They try teaching the camel how to sit. Ty believes the camel will learn to like doing what they say.

Gemma thinks through her past, trying to remember when she saw him. She realizes that he used to work in the park. Anna thought he was good-looking. Gemma thinks through her memories in the park and settles on one night—“[t]hat night.” Her friends were drunk and hooking up. Gemma was left alone, drunk, with Josh Holmes skulking after her. She took off through the park, and he followed. As Josh was about to corner her, someone in a hoodie tackled him and pulled him into the bushes. Gemma realizes the stranger was Ty. Ty reveals that that was the moment he knew he wanted her and would take her to the desert.

Gemma watches Ty train the camel, noticing how he uses fear and reward. She also notices how much more comfortable she has gotten with the desert. Ty starts training the camel so they can ride it when the gas runs out. As Ty gets water, Gemma thinks back to the night in the park and the man in the hoodie. She doesn’t understand the whole story.

She asks him why he came to Britain, and he tenses up, smashing a glass in his hand. He reveals his mother wrote him a letter and fetches the letter from the house. Gemma notices a photo of Ty’s mom, realizing that she looks a little bit like her. Ty reacts angrily when Gemma doesn’t immediately read the letter. He tells her that his mom wrote him, asking him to come live with her. He flew to London and discovered the address was a squat, and his mum had left. He tracked down a number for it and called, finding only a woman asking for money. He wonders if that was his mum after all. He hits a cushion near where Gemma sits and then retreats to the Separates. Later, she hears him scream.

The time comes when Ty usually feeds the chickens, but he hasn’t returned, so Gemma goes to feed them herself. She names them after her friends, family, and two ladies who used to chatter on the bus. Ty finds her fighting off the rooster and goes in to help. The rooster claws at his hands and tears a large gash across his knuckles. He asks Gemma to help clean the wounds.

Before helping, she decides to barter. If she helps, what will he do for her? He agrees to answer her questions. While she scours his wounds roughly, he tells her how he built this place. He stole money, begged, and eventually did sex work. He made better money working as a professional escort. He sank all the money into building this complex. The next morning, Gemma asks how he got the material here, and he reveals that there’s a mine site not too far away. Though Ty claims it’s abandoned, Gemma feels a glimmer of hope.

The next day, she pokes through the kitchen and finds a sewing needle, which she hides in her pocket. She goes on a walk with Ty, and he points out different plants. While he closes his eyes, leaning against a tree, Gemma holds the needle to his eyelid, threatening to kill him. He laughs at first then grows serious. She finds the key in his pocket. He tries to go with her, but she doesn’t want him. He laughs cruelly and calls her pathetic, telling her to see how far she gets.

Gemma runs straight to the car. She struggles to start it, and Ty walks leisurely toward her. She figures it out, and the engine revs. Ty realizes she’s serious and starts chasing after her. He screams and lunges at the door, but she locks him out. She leaves him behind, and he furiously throws things at the car. The car strains as she drives, but she’s too afraid to switch gears. She drives toward shadows on the horizon, thinking it’s the mine site, but she discovers the shadows are tall dunes. The car gets stuck in the sand. She starts to get dehydrated. She looks for tree bark or anything to help get the car out of the sand. She climbs the dune and sees nothing. She sleeps in the car and it grows cold. In the morning, she knows it is hopeless. She starts walking back toward the complex.

She gets increasingly dehydrated and desperate. She takes off all her clothes, trying to cool down. She is swarmed by flies. She collapses into the sand. She hallucinates returning home and seeing her family. It turns into a nightmare where her eyes and mouth are sewn up. Ty’s arms emerge from the bed, dragging her down.

She wakes up in bed covered in blisters, with cold clothes on her. She’s tied to the bed. Ty tends to her wounds. He rode the camel and followed her tracks. The car is still missing.

Several days pass. Gemma wonders why she hasn’t gotten her period yet. She walks outside and sees Ty catching a snake and taking it to the second outbuilding. Later, after he’s gone, she wanders into the building. She discovers it is full of crates housing poisonous spiders, scorpions, and snakes, including the snake he caught that morning. She rummages through the boxes and finds a bottle of rum. When he hasn’t come back by evening, she feels conflicted, worried that he might be planning to kill her but also worried that something happened to him out in the desert. She waits for him. Eventually, she pushes the dresser in front of the door and starts drinking from the bottle.