The Boy and His Ribbon

by Pepper Winters

  The Boy

  &

  His Ribbon

  by

  New York Times Bestseller

  Pepper Winters

  The Boy & His Ribbon

  Copyright © 2018 Pepper Winters

  Published by Pepper Winters

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Libraries are exempt and permitted to share their in-house copies with their members and have full thanks for stocking this book. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: Pepper Winters 2018: pepperwinters@gmail.com

  Cover Design: Ari @ Cover it! Designs

  Editing by: Editing 4 Indies (Jenny Sims)

  Visit my Website at:

  www.pepperwinters.com

  Contents

  BLURB

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Pre-Order

  THE GIRL & HER REN

  PLAYLIST

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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  OTHER BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM PEPPER WINTERS

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  Truth & Lies Duet

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  Sin & Suffer

  Indebted Series

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  Third Debt

  Fourth Debt

  Final Debt

  Indebted Epilogue

  Monsters in the Dark Trilogy

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  Je Suis a Toi

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  Destroyed

  Unseen Messages

  Can’t Touch This

  BLURB

  “What do you do when you meet your soul mate? No wait…that’s too easy. What do you do when you meet your soul mate and have to spend a lifetime loving him in secret?

  I’ll tell you what you do.

  You lie.”

  REN

  Ren was eight when he learned that love doesn’t exist—that the one person who was supposed to adore him only cared how much he was worth.

  His mother sold him and for two years, he lived in terror.

  But then…he ran.

  He thought he’d run on his own. Turned out, he took something of theirs by accident and it became the one thing he never wanted and the only thing he ever needed.

  DELLA

  I was young when I fell in love with him, when he switched from my world to my everything.

  My parents bought him for cheap labour, just like they had with many other kids, and he had the scars to prove it.

  At the start, he hated me, and I could understand why.

  For years he was my worst enemy, fiercest protector, and dearest friend.

  But by the end…he loved me.

  The only problem was, he loved me in an entirely different way to the way I loved him.

  And slowly, my secret drove us apart.

  CHAPTER ONE

  REN

  * * * * * *

  2000

  “STOP! WILLEM, SHOOT him. Don’t let him get away!”

  Bolting from the farmhouse with its broken paint-chipped shutters and rotten veranda, I swung the large backpack straps higher on my shoulders and leapt the small distance from hell to earth.

  The weight on my back wasn’t balanced, sending me tripping forward.

  I stumbled; my ankle threatened to roll. My useless ten-year-old legs already screamed it wasn’t possible to outrun a bullet from the wife of a killer and slaver, especially with such a cumbersome burden.

  Even if it wasn’t possible, I had to try.

  “Come back here, boy, and I won’t cut off another finger!” Mr. Mclary’s boom cut through the humidity of the night, chasing me with snapping teeth as I darted into the thicket of leaves and stalks, weaving like a worm around maize twice as tall as me.

  My tiny fists clenched at the thought of living through that pain again.

  His threat only gave me more incentive to escape—regardless if a bullet lodged in my spine and I died in the middle of their cornfield. At least this excruciating nightmare would be over.

  “Kill him, Willem!” Mrs Mclary�
��s voice screeched like the crows she liked to shoot with her dirty rifle from the kitchen window. “Who knows what he’s got pilfered in that bag of his!”

  A noise sounded behind me; a sudden cry jerked into silence.

  An animal perhaps?

  A cat?

  I didn’t care.

  I ran faster, putting my head down and using every remaining drop of energy, pain, and hope in my wasted, skinny body. The bulky backpack dragged me down. The weight far heavier than I remembered when I’d slung it over my shoulders during a test attempt two nights ago.

  I’d planned this for weeks. I’d scratched my escape route into the dusty floorboards beneath my cot and memorised the location of canned beans and farmhouse churned cheese so I could grab it in the dark.

  I’d been so careful. I’d believed I could vanish from this rank place I’d been sold to.

  But I wasn’t careful enough, and I hadn’t vanished.

  Bang.

  Corn stalks shivered in front of me, cracking in place where a bullet wedged at head height. The cry came again, short and sharp and close.

  Gulping air, I leaned into the soupy skies and kicked my burning legs into a sprint. The backpack bounced and dug into my shoulders, whispering that I should just drop my supplies and run.

  But unless I didn’t want to survive past a day or two of freedom, I needed it.

  I had nowhere to go. No one to help me. No money. No direction. I needed the food and scant water I’d stolen so I didn’t perish a few measly miles away from the very farmhouse I’d flown from.

  Bang.

  An ear of corn exploded in front of my face. Mr. Mclary’s voice warbled words with out-of-breath growls, giving chase in his precious field. My ears rang, blocking out another cry, amplifying my rapid heartbeat.

  Just a little farther and I’d pop out on the road.

  I’d find quicker escape on the sealed surface and hopefully flag down aid from some oblivious passer-by.

  Perhaps one of the same people who drove past daily and smiled at the quaint rustic farmhouse and cooed at the diligent hardworking children would finally open their eyes to the rotten slave trade occurring in their very midst.

  Bang!

  I ducked and fell to my knees.

  The backpack crushed me to the earth with sharp edges and sloshing belongings, yet another noise chasing me. I was strong for my age, so why did I find such a thing exhausting to carry?

  Shoving away such delays, I sprang up again, wheezing as my stupid little lungs failed to grant enough oxygen. My limbs burned and seized. My hope quickly dwindled. But I’d become well acquainted with pain and threw myself head first into it.

  This was my one chance.

  It was life or death.

  And I chose life.

  * * * * *

  Dawn crested on the horizon, its pink and gold daring to creep under the bush where I’d slid a few hours ago.

  The gunshots had stopped. The shouts had ceased. The sounds of vehicles or people long since vanished.

  I shouldn’t have turned off the road and entered the forest. I knew that. I’d known it the minute I’d leapt off manmade pathways and traded it for dirt, but Mr. Mclary had chased longer than I’d expected, and I was starved, beaten, and not prepared to give up my life by running in full sight of his rifle scope.

  Instead, I’d scrambled into the bushes of private, untended land and fought exhaustion until the hairs on the back of my neck no longer stood up in terror, and the thought of earning a bullet in the back of my head was no longer enough to keep me awake.

  The bush had offered sanctuary, and I’d fallen asleep the moment I’d burrowed beneath it, but it wasn’t the dawn that had awoken me.

  It was my backpack.

  A mewling, muffled cry came again, sounding alive and not at all like water and cheese.

  The noise was familiar. I’d heard it as I’d run, but I’d been too focused on living to notice it came from the very thing I’d stolen.

  The heavy rucksack was ex-army canvas with faded green stitching and buckets of room for bed rolls, ammunition, and anything else a soldier might need.

  I’d barely used any of the available space with my meagre supplies, yet it sat squat and full in the dirt.

  Another wail sent me scrambling into a squatting position, ready to bolt.

  Leaning forward with shaking hands, I tore the zipper open and fell backward.

  Two huge blue eyes stared up at me.

  Familiar blue eyes.

  Eyes I never wanted to see again.

  The infant bit her lip, studying my face with a furious flicker of attention. She didn’t cry louder. She didn’t squawk or squirm; she merely sat in my backpack amongst canned beans and squished cheese and waited for…something.

  How the hell did she get into my bag?

  I hadn’t put her there. I definitely wouldn’t steal the natural born daughter of Mr. and Mrs Mclary. They had sixteen children working their farm and only the girl in front of me was theirs by blood. The rest of us had been bought like cattle, branded like a herd, and forced to work until we were begging for the abattoir.

  The baby wriggled uncomfortably, sticking her thumb in her mouth and never taking her eyes off me.

  “Why are you in my bag?” My voice was far too loud for my ears. Something small scurried off on tiny feet. Bending closer to her, she leaned back, wariness and fear clouding her inquisitive gaze. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”

  A stream gurgled not far in the undergrowth. My thirst made my mouth water while merciless practicality made me think up other uses for the river.

  I couldn’t take her back, and I couldn’t take her with me.

  That gave me no option.

  I could leave her unattended for a wild animal to make a meal of, or I could dispatch her humanely by drowning her just like her parents had drowned a boy three weeks ago for not latching the gate and letting three sheep escape.

  She twirled a faded blue ribbon around her teeny fist as if going over the conclusions herself. Did she know I contemplated killing her to make my escape easier? Did she understand that I would treat her no better than her parents treated me?

  Slouching in the bracken beneath my chosen bush, I sighed heavily.

  Who was I kidding?

  I couldn’t kill her.

  I couldn’t even kill the rats who shared the barn with us.

  Somehow, she’d crawled into my backpack, I’d stupidly ran with her even though I’d known something was wrong, and now my impossible task at staying alive just got even harder.

  CHAPTER TWO

  REN

  * * * * * *

  2000

  I’D KNOWN I might face death if I ran.

  If not from a bullet, then starvation or exposure.

  That was why I’d waited far longer than I should have. Why I’d lost weight that I needed and strength I couldn’t afford to lose. I’d been sold to the Mclarys two winters ago, and I should’ve been smarter.

  I should’ve run the night they filled my mother’s fist with cash, stuffed me in a urine-soaked car, then shoved me in the barn with the rest of their kiddie prisoners and introduced me to my education the very next day.

  The night I was sold was hazy, thanks to a strong cuff to the head when I’d dared to cry, and these days, I couldn’t remember my mother, which was fine because I never knew my father, either.

  I only knew that we’d been made to call Mr. and Mrs Mclary Ma and Pop.

  I’d obeyed out loud, but in my head, they were always the hated Mclarys. Just as hated as their blood relative currently foiling my escape plan.

  I glowered at the baby girl, adding another level of intensity, doing my best to work up enough rage to kill her and be done with it.

  Just like I didn’t know my father, I didn’t know how she’d ended up in my backpack. Had she crawled in by herself? Had another kid put her there? Had her mother even placed her inside for some reason?

 
The bag wasn’t mine. The scuffed-up thing belonged to Mr. Mclary who filled it with booze and thick sandwiches when it was harvesting time. It sat bold and dusty by the door, hanging out with its friends the musty jackets, broken umbrellas, and well-worn boots.

  I scratched my head for the hundredth time, trying to figure out the riddle of why my carefully plotted escape had somehow ended up with an unwanted passenger.

  A passenger that couldn’t walk or talk or even eat on her own.

  Tears pricked at my scratchy eyes.

  I should be miles away by now, but I still hadn’t solved this problem. I still didn’t know how I could run quietly and hide secretly with a baby who would, at any moment, start screaming.

  Just because she’d been deathly quiet and serious since I’d found her didn’t mean she wouldn’t expose me and get me killed.

  I cocked my head, studying her closer, hating her pink clean skin and glossy golden curls. Her cheeks were round and eyes bright. She was a mockery to every kid in the barn with sunken faces and withered bodies that looked like trees poisoned by petrol.

  She was lucky. She’d been cared for. She’d slept in a bed with blankets and teddy bears and hugs.

  My fists curled, reminding me all over again of my one missing finger on my left hand.

  Would they miss her?

  Would they search for her?

  Would they even care?

  I’d lived my life with one existence: where parents were cruel and beat their children, branded them with hot cattle irons, and fed them by trough and pail.

  Up until a year ago, I’d believed that was how all kids were treated. That we were all vermin only fit to toil—Mrs Mclary’s words every night as we crawled exhausted into our mismatch of cots and pallets.

  It wasn’t until the night Mr. Mclary cut off my pinkie for stealing some freshly baked apple pie that I saw a different story.

  I’d tempted fate by sneaking back into the farmhouse—which was the very reason I had nine digits and not ten anymore. After passing out and coming to from the pain, I’d exhausted my search for a cleanish rag to replace the blood-soaked undershirt around my severed finger, and decided the farmhouse would have a tea towel I could borrow.