Trapped in Paradise

Chapter One

The day had started off with the same mundanity as every other day of her life for the last two years. Grace woke up, packed her bag and went to work. No one said hello as she clocked in. As usual, the coffee shop was filled with people, in meetings, on dates, in study groups. No one seemed to notice that she'd arrived.

When her shift was over, she hung her apron by the door and clocked out. No one said goodbye as she shrugged on her jacket. The walk to the library is short, and her eyes remain trained on the ground, watching the shoes that pass by.

Inside, she takes her corner and pulls out her books and begins to study.

Nothing about her day suggested that anything unusual was going to happen.

Maybe that's why, when a hand slapped over her mouth and an arm encircled her waist, she was so slow to react.

Initially, her body went stiff as a board, but once the person begins to haul her backwards, everything she's ever heard from school visits by the local police officers kicks in. She bites down on the palm and brings her elbow up. Her stomach revolts when she hears something crack, and it stills her for a moment. However, whoever is attacking her isn't distracted. His hand remains in place, even when Grace can taste blood, and their movements don't stutter, even though she's sure she broke a rib.

Her heel comes down on the person's toes, but still, they don't stop.

Her screams don't make a dent in the silence of the darkened streets, and her fighting has no effect. She's completely at the mercy of this stranger.

* * *

Reflecting on her life, Grace is ninety-nine percent sure that no one will even notice she's gone. Not the people at the hell-hole she calls home, not the teachers at school, not the people she works with. In fact, she's certain that even if she were to die on the streets, not a single person would stop to help her. It's not because the people of her town are heartless, but because Grace is, and always has been, invisible. That's not their fault. Grace just carries nothing of interest, and in turn, no one takes an interest in her.

Tomorrow morning, the house will wake up, and all the other children will get dressed and ready for a Monday morning at school. The teachers will take roll-call, and they will probably look at her name in confusion, as they always do because they've forgotten she ever existed. When they call her name and receive no response, they'll shrug it off as an administrative mistake and continue with their class. At four in the afternoon, Grace's shift will start, and no one will know who to be angry with. They'll have already forgotten about the quiet, mousy girl who did her work and didn't make a fuss. They'll have no face to place to the name. Her apron will be handed to someone else who talks and makes friends. Someone who leaves a mark. Her name-badge will be thrown into the trash.

At nine at night, when the staff at the home are checking to make sure everyone's there, they'll frown at the numbers and wonder why one person is missing. They'll check the rooms again and wonder 'who is this missing number?' and then write it off as a miscount.

By Tuesday, she'll be completely forgotten.

So, why would someone take her, of all people, from the streets?

* * *

Dirt and dust from the floor presses against her skin. No matter how much Grace wriggles, she's unable to get comfortable. Her wrists chafe against the rope used to bind them behind her back, and her legs are cramping in the small space that she's been confined. The duct-tape over her mouth is the only thing that's stopping her from crying. She's terrified that her nose will get blocked, causing her to suffocate.

Her ears throb with the sound of her own heartbeat, and her skin grows clammy with fear-induced sweat.

After the man – and she was sure it was a man, even though their face had been covered with the rim of a baseball cap – was finished binding her, he had thrown her into a small cage and shut her in with the darkness.

No time was wasted, and the van rumbled alive immediately, and with that, she was taken away from the closest thing she's had to call home since she was a child.

Grace's internal clock may not be the best on the market, but she's certain they've been driving for hours. Hunger gnaws at her stomach, her bladder is beginning to complain, exhaustion grips her, pouring cement into her eyelids, and her body begins to melt.

There's no sense in staying awake if there's nothing she can do to save herself, but she can't turn her mind off. She can't stop her brain from whirring away with every possibility.

Behind her closed eyelids, she's met with increasingly vivid scenes of what she's going to be met with when the van finally comes to a stop. None bear thinking about, but the visuals stain her mind, and no matter how hard she tries to wash it away with other, less-horrifying thoughts. The images stay, and with it, a dreadful certainty.

I'm going to die.

Sleep comes with difficulty, and when she finally drifts, it's disturbed immediately. The van lurches to a stop, and her shoulder digs painfully into the wire walls of the cage.

"Where's my money?" a gruff voice demands.

"You'll be paid once she is inside the house. Not a moment earlier," a prim voice responds.

The doors open and Grace cringes away from the heavy heat that adds another layer to her sweat-soaked skin, and she closes her eyes against the stinging sunlight.

"Bring her in then, we do not have all day."

The man with the hat drags her from the cage, renewing Grace's panic. She kicks out and bucks her entire body, but she's thrown over a shoulder and carried. Her stomach cries out with pain, but no amount of manoeuvring changes that.

Behind her, she can see the van, matt-grey and standing against a vast, sandy wasteland. Other than a cactus or two, there is nothing but desert surrounding them. A set of tyre-tracks disappears beyond the curve, and Grace swallows against her rising panic.

The man continues to walk, and soon they're walking through a gate. Walls made of white brick reach thirty feet high. Grass, far too green to be natural, spreads across the ground, broken only by the steppingstones that lead them from the desert.

"Hold her just a second longer," the sensible voice demands.

Using her arms to gain leverage, Grace pushes herself upright and stares around at the building stretching out behind her. At least three stories high, with fifteen windows on her left and her right.

Something soft and wet is pressed against her nose, and she screams into the tape. She knows what it is, she knows that breathing in will welcome in unconsciousness, but it's either that or death.

The stench of something acidic burns at her nostrils.

Before everything becomes dark, Grace gets a good look at the house she's being taken into.

It's beautiful.

And she's going to die here.

*Rewritten 27/02/202