The weather in the UK was rarely so sunny—especially near the docks, where concrete buildings loomed and bridges cast long shadows. Today, however, the sky was unusually calm, serene, the kind of quiet that almost made one forget where they were.

Alexander DeLarge. A name known far too well, and welcomed by none. The government's experiment, the poster boy for state-sanctioned reform. Prison time, abuse, the infamous treatment that stripped him of choice and violence—no, Alex wasn’t who he used to be. The doctors had made sure of that.

In Alex’s mind, he was already an old man, though he’d just turned eighteen. Childhood was a thing of the past. His mate Pete had grown up proper—married now, probably with a child on the way. Responsibility. Adulthood.

And Alex? He longed for the same. Not just to be seen as a man, but to feel like one. He’d begun to fantasize about offspring—his own, of course. A child to prove he’d crossed the threshold. A living, breathing symbol that he was whole again, respectable, even upright.

But such things didn’t come easily. First, there had to be a wife. And before that, a womb—a willing one.

So it was no accident when his eyes fell upon the figure waiting beneath the bus station awning. Young, delicate, with a look that matched the dream in his head. She didn’t know it yet, but she was to be his.