Chapter 12

The next morning, Gerry and Kate woke up tangled in the same sleeping bag, drenched in each other’s sweat and juices. Their heads pounded with the remnants of too much wine, sex and too little sleep.

“Ooooh,” groaned Kate, shielding her eyes from the morning light coming through the tent canvas. “So much wine.”

“Let’s just sleep a little longer,” mumbled Gerry, and Kate nodded in agreement, snuggling closer.

It was nearly nine by the time they finally stirred and began dressing sluggishly.

“Maddie,” Kate called out as she pulled on her sweater, glancing toward her daughter’s tent. The silence that followed made her pause.

Gerry frowned as he noticed Maddie’s swimsuit was missing from the branch where it had been drying. “Maybe she’s gone swimming already,” he said with a shrug.

“Oh well,” Kate replied, smiling at him. “Let’s go have breakfast. We had a busy night,” she added with a giggle, and Gerry chuckled in agreement as they made their way toward the restaurant.

Later, as they sipped coffee and nibbled on pastries, Kate glanced at her watch and frowned. Maddie still hadn’t shown up. She thought of the walk she’d planned with her daughter and wondered if Maddie was rethinking it.

When they returned to the campsite around eleven, Kate peeked into Maddie’s tent again. Her heart sank when she saw her daughter’s phone lying untouched on the sleeping bag.

“She wouldn’t leave without her phone,” Kate said, her voice laced with concern.

A few more hours passed with still no sign of Maddie. The unease that had been simmering in Kate began to boil over, her chest tightening with worry.

“Gerry, something isn’t right—she wouldn’t be gone for hours like this,” Kate said, her voice trembling. “And if she went swimming, then ... Oh my God.”

Gerry’s face turned pale as the realization hit him too. “You’re right,” he said, standing abruptly. “Let’s just call the police.”

Kate bit into the sleeve of her sweater, her teeth pressing into the fabric as panic coursed through her. Her mind raced, unable to keep up with the calm tone of Gerry’s voice as he spoke to the police over the phone.

This isn’t real, she thought. This couldn’t be happening—not to her daughter. Not her Maddie.

---------- Maddie was locked in a deep, dreamless sleep, unlike anything she had ever experienced before. She didn’t stir—not while she lay encased in her tent, not as she was carried silently through the bushes up to the car park, nor as her limp body was folded into the boot of a car.

She remained completely unaware as the vehicle rumbled to a stop and she was transferred to a box, then loaded onto a moving engine boat cutting through the dark, choppy sea. The whistling wind and crashing waves didn’t rouse her as the boat docked at a desolate island.

Even as she was carried through the howling gale, toward a singular, ominous house perched like a sentinel on the small island, Maddie remained utterly unconscious.

---------- When Maddie finally awoke, her eyes fluttered open to an unfamiliar, stark white room. The walls were plain and featureless, with no windows, and a mirror stretched across one side. Her heart began to pound as she sat up, twisting her head back and forth.

It wasn’t her tent.

Something else felt off. Maddie looked down at herself and froze. She wasn’t wearing her t-shirt and panties anymore. Instead, she was dressed in a frilly Alice-in-Wonderland-style petticoat dress, its hem stopping halfway down her legs.

She touched the fabric incredulously, noting its unfamiliar softness. Beneath the dress, she found she had on white panties she didn’t recognize. Her feet were clad in frilly white ankle socks and shiny black shoes, which she was somehow still wearing in bed. Her hair had been styled into two neat ponytails on either side of her face, with a cute Alice band nestled perfectly in place atop her head.

Panic began to creep in as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Who had done this to her? How? Why?

Her breathing quickened as she swung her legs off the bed and stood. She scanned the room. In the corners near the ceiling, she spotted small video cameras fixed on her, their lenses cold and unblinking.

Across the room was a heavy metal door. Maddie hurried over to it, desperate for answers. The door was sealed with a large, round metal handle, one that looked like it needed to be twisted. She gripped it and strained, but it wouldn’t budge. It was stiff—too stiff for her to move on her own.

She stepped back, her chest rising and falling as she fought the panic threatening to overwhelm her. “Hello?” she called out, her voice trembling. “Is anyone there?”

No response. Just silence. The video cameras remained fixed on her, watching her every move.

Where was she? How had she gone from her tent to this? Heaven? Hell? Alive? Dead?

Her knees felt weak as she backed away from the door, her mind spinning. This wasn’t real—this couldn’t be real. She closed her eyes, tightly.

“Daddy? Mummy?”

She opened them, she was here, not her tent, what the hell was this?

---------- Edward Pembroke sat just meters above Maddie, in the small room with the screens, trying to steady his nerves with coffee. He had been looking at the sleeping beauty for hours now, wondering when she would ever wake up.

He could hardly believe it. He had done it. Finally, after all this time—after all the planning, the rehearsing, and the obsessing—he had actually done it. Having not had alcohol for days, he suddenly felt intoxicated, this was better than any drug induced high.

For years, he had dreamed of this—longed for it—and now, here she was: captive, helpless, and his.

His leaned closer to the screen, watching the girl’s confusion deepen as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, then at the cameras. Her delicate movements, her vulnerability, her confusion, it was making his dick hard already.

But then fear began to creep in. What if he had been seen or recognised? Either at the loch, or when he had loaded Maddie onto the boat and taken it out at four in the morning? He was confident he hadn’t’ been seen, but surely this was too good to be true?

He would have no way of knowing until it was too late. With no internet and no phone signal on the island other than the radio, he would have to go ashore to the mainland to find out any news.

The girl moved toward the door, her small hands struggling with the heavy handle. Pembroke was almost crying with happiness now. Maddie was everything he had ever wanted. He steeled himself, vowing to take his time and break her in properly, resisting the urge to rip that pretty dress off and rape her there and then.

He cleared his throat, preparing his most sophisticated tone, licked his lips, and leaned toward the microphone, ready to speak into the room.

Maddie was absentmindedly playing with the strange folds of her dress, its frilly design reminiscent of something from a hundred years ago. It was innocent and cute in appearance, but the eerie reality of someone having dressed her in it while she was asleep made her skin crawl.

Suddenly, a voice boomed through the room, deep and jarring, shattering the silence and making her jump in fright.

“Hello, Maddie. I’m glad you finally woke up!” the voice said, smooth yet unnervingly cheerful.

Maddie’s breath caught in her throat as she backed into a corner, her arms outstretched defensively. She looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“Don’t worry, Maddie. This is your new life. Welcome!” the voice said, an unsettling mix of pompous, haughty, and disturbingly cheerful. “I do hope you’ll find it a lot of fun.”