Unfortunately, though, their efforts didn't really fit Ty's definition of help: 'They decided how old I was, what I was going to wear,' he tells Gemma. He wouldn't talk to the administrators at the home, so they gave him a name and tried to do the best they could to help him. We wish we could say things got better for Ty once he was taken from the farm, but if anything, stuff just got worse. Eventually, he left the farm and never came back, leaving Ty to fend for himself until child protective services caught on to what was going on and took him away from the farm, sending him to a children's home in the city. At least, until his dad started going to the city to play the stock market and started playing with booze and drugs instead.

So, Ty grew up on a farm in Australia with his dad and learned to be a nature boy from the farmhands, and things were going pretty good. Ty's mom was never in the picture-she and his dad were 'never really together' (31.10) and while she tried to be a mother for a while, she eventually gave custody to Ty's dad. These Australian natives were not just his employees but Ty's friends, who 'taught about the land' (31.17). (There isn't.)Īccording to Ty's account, his dad was once a farmer in Australia who had a pretty good operation going with the Aborigines who worked for him. Well, that is, unless there's something nice about child neglect and abandonment. While Gemma is understandably not into talking to Ty when she first gets to his place, she eventually opens up enough to hear the story of his childhood. But, is it possible that there could be another side to the story? Is it also possible that what Ty did was, at least in his eyes, defensible? Let's see if we can find out. Ty is a kidnapper at best and a predator at worst, but either way, he steals a girl and puts her in mortal danger.

Ty is a twenty-something dude who abducts an underage girl from an airport and transports her to the wilderness of Australia, where he swears he'll never let her leave and will keep her there forever.

Stolen by lucy christopher