The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)(21)

I wasn’t used to contact from another and definitely not used to contact given so readily and often, but to have her deny what I’d grown accustomed to that night, especially after I’d been prepared to slaughter whatever it was to keep her safe reached into my chest and twisted.

Perhaps it was the feral mind-set I’d been in, already bathing in blood of whatever beast I would kill, or maybe it was the way my fists turned white from clutching the knives—whatever it was, her tears cascaded faster once the threat of danger had passed than they had when it’d been snuffling and pawing at our door.

So I’d done the only thing that popped into my head.

I’d placed aside my blades, pulled her into my lap, and told her a horror story to take her mind off the one we’d just avoided.

I told her about the farmhouse and what it was like at dinner-time. I let the fact that some animals wanted to eat us colour my retelling of starvation and helplessness in the barn. I’d killed rats and eaten them raw before. I’d torn pumpkin from another starving kid’s hands. I sympathized with the hungry—human and beast—and did my best to make Della see that it wasn’t personal. It was just nature’s balance, and it was our responsibility to stay at the top of the food chain because we’d encounter so many that wanted to steal that position for itself.

She’d fallen asleep clutching me as tight as she clutched her ribbon, and although it shouldn’t, although I was stupid to be jealous of a tatty piece of blue, I slept with a smile on my face and my friend in my arms all night.

Tonight, though, she wasn’t satisfied with just a normal story.

She wanted the truth, and I was too young to think of sheltering her from it.

A few weeks ago, she’d noticed what I tried to forget every time I washed. She’d gawked at the marked piece of flesh on the side of my hipbone.

We always bathed together out of necessity and safety. I didn’t care about being naked around her because all the other kids in the barn dressed and undressed to the point it was normal seeing each other bare. But there were some things I wished she didn’t see.

Scars I’d endured.

Punishments I’d deserved.

Mistakes I’d made.

And that.

The one thing I could never run from.

The brand Mclary used to mark all his property from his horses to his cows to his bought and paid for children.

Della poked my hip with a tenacious finger, her face scrunched up as a stuttering please fell from her lips.

Before, I had more willpower about denying her things; I could easily say no and mean it. These days, I struggled especially when she threw back the same temper I used on her to get my way. She’d learned too well, and I sighed heavily, knowing tonight I would tell her just to stop her bugging me about it.

Keeping one eye on the shed door barricaded with an old generator and fallen apart rocking chair, I snuggled deeper into the shared warmth of the sleeping bag and began:

“A farmer with lots of cattle has only one way of making sure he can keep track of his inventory. With other farmer’s stock sometimes wandering into his fields and rustlers stealing his herd at night, it makes sense to have a way to identify what belongs to him and what doesn’t.”

Della blinked, wriggling closer to pull up my jumper and push down the top of my trousers.

Instead of shoving her away like I usually did, I let her run her fingertip over the raised scar tissue on my hip.

While she studied the embossed Mc97 in a neat oval stamped into my flesh, I said, “Your parents have a brand. I don’t know entirely what the numbers are for, but I guess the Mc is for their name. Every single animal on Mclary’s farm has the same brand. Their sheep, their cows…me.”

Della let my clothing go to stick her thumb in her mouth and stroke her ribbon.

“Don’t do that.” I yanked her thumb from her tiny lips. “You’ll have crooked teeth.”

She was a pretty kid, but that didn’t mean she’d stay that way if she had teeth as bad as her father’s thanks to chewing tobacco and bad hygiene.

Slipping straight back into the story, I pushed her tiny hand into her lap. “The brand is found on all animals on their rump to the left, unless it’s a sheep and then it’s on their ear because of the wool.”

Della nodded as if she understood every word.

I shrugged. “There isn’t much more to say. It was the first morning I arrived at the farm. I remember being pulled from bed after crying myself to sleep and being stripped with four other boys in the crushing stall where the stock are wormed and drenched. There, he had two other farmhands hold us down, and branded us with his stamp of ownership.”

I did my best not to let my mind skip down that painful memory lane, keeping my voice level and emotions out of it. “The smell was almost identical to that when he did the calves a few hours later. The burn hurt more than my finger.”

Della’s face fell as her little hand found mine. She squeezed with all the wisdom of a girl twice her age, full of sympathy I didn’t want.

Snatching my hand from hers, I shrugged again. “It was fine. I was just like his herd to him. I got why he had to mark us. He said it was so no one could steal us because we belonged to him and he’d come claim us, but I knew it was so he could find us if we ever tried to run.”

I rubbed the scar, wishing I could erase it permanently. “It doesn’t matter, though. He’ll never find me, brand or no brand.”