The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)(14)

Social Services.

Unwanted.

Unknown future.

My knees turned to water as images of Della being sold, same as me, to a fate worse than me crashed through my mind.

She’d end up being the girls with ponytails forcibly taken into the house by Mr. Mclary to do special tasks. She’d become broken and rageful and full of vicious hate at a world that’d failed her.

At a boy who had failed her.

My heart traded hate for something else.

Something that tasted like obligation, commitment, and a tiny thread of affection but most of all, like sour seething possession.

Della Mclary had become mine the moment she ended up in my backpack.

I was the only one who could hurt her.

Not that man holding her. Not Social Services. Not Mclary or false parents or men who might buy her for special tasks.

Only me.

I spun in place, the cutlery clanking loudly in my backpack.

“Hey, what are you doing in my shop? Where are your parents, buddy?” an elderly shopkeeper waddled from behind his desk, but he was too late.

I bolted from his store as the little bell jangled my departure.

I ran down the street.

I sprinted all the way to the pretty blue and white house where something of mine waited for me.





CHAPTER EIGHT





REN



2000




SCENARIOS RAN IN my head as I careened to a stop outside the house where Della Mclary waited for me to fix what I’d broken.

Midmorning meant people inside would be awake. Bright sunlight meant I wouldn’t go unnoticed.

I could wait until darkness and steal her back, but then I ran the risk of stumbling into the wrong bedroom and being caught. I could wait until Social Services arrived tomorrow and grab her, but then I ran the risk of being grabbed myself.

Or—and this was really my only option—I could march up to the front door, knock, and demand Della be given back to me.

I looked over my shoulder at the forest in the distance, seeing my dream of living alone vanishing bit by bit.

I wasn’t afraid of darkness or predators or being completely vulnerable with no one to rely on but myself. But I was afraid of taking Della to such a place.

She was useless.

She was a baby.

I already knew she didn’t fare well in the wild thanks to the previous few weeks we’d survived. She’d inched closer toward death every day.

Only because you weren’t prepared for her.

Only because you didn’t take what you needed.

It wasn’t because I didn’t know how to live off the land, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t provide for us.

She’d been a surprise.

And this time…I had shelter, tools, and equipment that meant we’d flourish not perish.

She wouldn’t be a death sentence anymore, merely a complication I willingly chose.

I stepped back from the house.

Wait, did I willingly choose this, or was I doing it out of fear? Was living with me better or worse than living with another? Just because I’d been sold and the girls sharing the barn with me cried themselves to sleep every night, didn’t mean that would happen to Della.

Perhaps the best thing for her would be to wait for a foster family to take her, love her, house her in a pretty little home and feed her with supermarket purchased food instead of being carried for miles by a boy then bedding down in a tent with a belly full of hunted rabbit.

After all, wasn’t that what I tried to do by leaving her with a family who already had a baby? Why didn’t they want her? They already had one. What was the difference in raising two?

Mclary had sixteen and managed.

The sun beat down on my head, making my back sweat against my pilfered gear. I had to make a decision. I had to leave town before I was noticed—before the owner of the camping store saw his merchandise walking down the streets unpaid for; before the supermarket manager noticed his broken window.

But…Della.

My eyes shot back to the house.

The front door swung open, revealing a woman with a lemon dress and a blue dish cloth in her hands. Her brown hair hung down her back while pink spots decorated her cheeks from chores.

I froze.

We stared at each other.

We stared some more.

Slowly, she lowered the dish towel and stepped off her porch then down the pebbled path to the front gate.

My knees jiggled to sprint. My thighs bunched to flee.

She smiled, cocked her head, and said, “Hello.”

I swallowed.

I hadn’t spoken in days. I’d almost forgotten how. Before I could be polite, she added, “I saw you in the window. Are you okay? Are you lost?” Her gaze landed on my backpack, questions scrolling over her face. “What’s your name?”

Her questions were landmines, and I didn’t want to get blown up.

Looping my fingers under the straps of my bag, I raised my chin, narrowed my gaze, and said coldly, “You have something of mine.”

“Excuse me?”

“I made a mistake.”

“What mistake?”

“I left something behind.”

She frowned. “Left what—” Realization widened her eyes. “Wait, are you talking about—”

“Della Mclary.” I nodded sternly. “She’s mine. I want her back.”