Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3)

by Pepper Winters

  Where fleas had made me itch and hessian sacks made scratchy blankets. Where nightmares had tormented me just as surely as life had.

  “Ren…” Della said. “I don’t think—”

  I squeezed her fingers and marched onward, keeping my face blank as a cop to our left shouted with dismay that he’d found another body.

  How many did the ground contain? Was this still a farm or a cemetery?

  The first touch of shadow from the large creaking barn was a physical scratch on my skin, making me prickle with goosebumps. The soaring ceilings and musty scent of hay cloying with memories.

  I hated this place.

  I hated it as fiercely as I’d hated Mclary.

  I wanted to burn it to the goddamn ground, but I swallowed my pyro tendencies and weaved my way through stables, past pallets that had been beds, and into the metal crush where Mclary had drenched his stock.

  And there…

  Shit.

  My jaw clenched, and a wave of bile scalded my throat.

  Della cried out, planting herself in front of me and shaking her head. “Don’t, Ren. Let’s go.”

  “No.” Pushing past her, I walked heavily until I reached the rack with Mclary’s tools. The rack where I’d stolen a knife and let some other poor kid take the blame. The rack that most likely held the tool used to cut off my finger. The rack where a long metal brand waited for its next victim.

  For once, my hand didn’t shake as I pulled the heavy rod with its oval Mc97 stamp off the wall and hefted its weight.

  Today, it was dull, cold metal that could do no damage.

  Back then, it had been a molten-glowing weapon that turned me into a possession.

  Della crept to my side, resting her head on my arm. “He was a sick fuck, and I’m so sorry.”

  My lips twisted into a smile. “Language, Della Ribbon.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. He was a fucking sick fuck, and I’m glad he’s dead.”

  I sighed, shaking my head. “How can you make me smile at a time like this?”

  “Same way you make me the luckiest girl alive even when we stand in a place like this.” Her voice caught. “To know I came from these people…” A tear ran down her face. “I’m disgusted. I-I’m appalled. I feel like I’m going to be sick for what they—”

  “Della.” Turning to face her, I let the brand clatter to the concrete floor and gathered her in my arms. “Stop.”

  She clung to me, her fingernails digging into my back. “I’m so sorry, Ren.” Her tears soaked into my t-shirt. “So sorry for what they did to you.”

  “I’m not.” I kissed her brow, pushing her away with a quiet cough. “I would live it all over again because it gave me you.”

  Her face contorted with love and abhorrence and everything in between. “We shouldn’t have come here.”

  “We didn’t have a choice.” Looking past her to the innocuous barn that had been the stage for so many vile things, I murmured, “I don’t regret running that night, but I do regret not coming back and trying to help. For not going to the authorities and telling them what I escaped from. For not doing something. If I can do something now…even if it’s too late, then I have to try.”

  Her slender frame wedged against mine again, gripping with a fury that made my heart leap with love and gratitude. “You saved two lives that night, Ren. Two lives that wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t taken that chance.”

  “Is it enough? Is it enough to be grateful that we have each other when so many kids died here?”

  “It has to be.” She pressed a kiss to my chest, snuggling into the borrowed coat I wore. “I love you, Ren Wil—” Her head came up, forehead furrowed. “Shaw. Your real last name is Shaw.”

  I shook my head and kissed her nose. “No. It’s not.”

  “Who are you then?”

  “I’m Ren Wild, protector of Della Wild.

  “A boy who survived.”

  * * * * *

  Night had fallen by the time the mayhem slowed down.

  A building crew had arrived to remove the asbestos, a trailer was parked up to catalogue the corpses they’d found, and the farm crawled with trespassers.

  Officers set up spotlights for the evening crew, while fellow workers handed out takeaway cups of coffee and store-bought sandwiches.

  I was hungry, tired, and ready to leave this place.

  My bones ached and my lungs throbbed. I couldn’t get rid of the pressure inside me, the ever constant rattle these days.

  I wanted nothing more than to sneak away in the dark and vanish with Della.

  But I didn’t know if we were allowed.

  Was I still under arrest?

  Was I free to go or bound to stay?

  Another eleven bodies had been found throughout the farm, all in various states of decay and mutilation.

  Della had refused to eat an offered muffin, and my stomach was a snarling mess of snakes.

  When dusk crept over the overcast day, we’d sat on the steps of the veranda watching, always watching, as tarps covered freshly dug up bones and dogs panted with a job well done on their leashes.

  Della stayed close, sharing body heat as the air chilled both of us. I opened my coat wide, welcoming her against me.

  “Mr. Shaw?”

  My eyes tracked a young detective as she stomped past in muddy boots with a clipboard.

  “Mr. Shaw?”

  I glanced at the beagle slurping up water in a stainless-steel dish that its handler had put down for him.

  “Mr. Shaw?” Someone tapped my shoulder, wrenching my head to look behind me. Martin Murray bent over me, his eyebrow raised.

  “You want something?” I asked, my voice gravel and soot from lack of rest.

  “Yes. We found something you might want to see.”

  Standing on creaking legs, I helped Della up and shrugged out of my coat, so she could keep its warmth. I coughed as my heat dispersed.

  She tried to refuse, but I merely bundled her tighter, did up the button, and kissed her forehead. Turning my attention to Martin, I ran a hand over my face, trying to wake myself up.

  “Miss Mclary? Mr. Shaw?” A female officer with long black hair in a plait appeared from the house. “Can you come with us, please?”

  Della padded toward her, but I stopped short. “That is not my name nor Della’s. We’re Wild. Use it.”

  Martin scowled. “But it is. You finally know your real name.”

  “It ceased to be my real name the day I was sold.”

  He studied me, finally nodding. “You know, all records and proceedings going forward are going to be under the name Ren Shaw and Della Mclary. You have to get used to it.”

  “What proceedings?”

  He looked away, embarrassed. “Well, I still don’t know what will happen with the kidnapping charge. Whether it will become a state crime now Willem and Marion Mclary are dead, or…or if it can just be ignored.”

  “When will you know?” I asked, following him and the female officer into the gloomy house with its feeble lighting in cobwebbed shades.

  “Once this mess has been sorted out.”

  “They’re dead children, Mr. Murray, not a mess,” Della said sternly. “And if you bring a case against Ren, I’ll contest it. I’m the only living Mclary left. And I say I wasn’t kidnapped.”

  Martin squeezed the back of his neck, indicating his stress levels were as strained as ours. “Another topic for another day. For now, let’s focus on what we found.”

  Together, we moved deeper into the house toward the narrow staircase leading upstairs.

  The steps groaned and cracked as we trailed single file up and up, then followed obediently down the dingy corridor. I’d never been upstairs, and I guessed one of these rooms had been Della’s nursery once upon a time. Now, they were just store rooms with junk and miscellaneous boxes with a master at the end with a stripped mattress and stained carpet.

  The sweet smell of decay hinted that this was where Marion Mclary had dec
ided to do the deed.

  “We found this,” the female detective said, marching to her colleague who was taking photos of a hidden panel in the wardrobe. “A cubby full of documents.”

  “What sort of documents?” Della asked as we moved deeper into the room, peering at the scattered paperwork all over the bed and yet more coming from the secret hole in the wall.

  “Birth certificates.”

  I inhaled sharply, stalking toward the bed and fisting a few stained pages. Some were hand scribbled, and others were computer printed. Some girls. Some boys. Too many to count.

  “They asked whoever sold their child to give them their birth certificate too?” Della stood next to me wrinkling her nose in disgust. “That’s not just sick. That’s…diabolical. It’s as if they fully believed they were buying an animal and had the bill of sale to prove it.”

  Martin Murray nodded. “I agree. A case like this can’t explain the rationale of the people who committed the crimes.”

  “How many?” I snapped, doing my best to rein in my hope that mine existed in the pile.

  The female officer said, “We’ve counted. There’s one hundred and sixty-seven. Compared to the two hundred and seventeen names, I’m guessing some kids were born and never registered, some didn’t have their birth certificates, and a few were sold with the child, if what you say is true, Mr. Shaw, and they were moved on once they could no longer do the work required.”

  “Have you found mine?” I asked quietly, wishing I didn’t have hope bubbling in my chest because I already tasted bitter disappointment.

  But to finally have that piece of paper? To finally be free to marry Della? It would be a gift after such a grotesque day.

  “No, I’m afraid not.” The female officer scanned the pages in front of us. “I mean, there’s always a chance we’ll find more, but not at this stage. However—” She turned to a colleague and collected a page protected by cloudy cellophane. “We did find this one.”

  Della was the one to take it. Only right, seeing as it had her name on it.

  In shaky calligraphy, her name, Della Donna Mclary, stated she was born on 27th of June to Willem and Marion Mclary.

  She gave me a weak smile. “I’m going to scribble that out and make it Wild instead.”

  I chuckled softly. “Or I could just marry you and make it legally Wild.”

  Her face fell. “If you can somehow make Wild legally yours, first.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  She smiled sadly. “Work on making your birthday the same as mine, too. Can’t break a lifelong tradition now, can we?”

  I ran a finger over her birth certificate, stopping on the date. “I don’t care when I was born. I’m sharing yours forever.”

  Martin looked away as I glanced at him, he’d been listening but pretended to give us privacy and another moment or two to study her birth certificate before holding up yet another document.

  This one was dog-eared and had been written on something soft, so the pen had almost pressed through the page, leaving embossed letters and not just ink. “This was in the secret cubby, too.” Passing it to me, he nodded for me to take it.

  I did, gingerly.

  I didn’t want to touch what they’d touched. I didn’t want to read what they’d written, but as my eyes fell to the top line, and I understood what it was, I passed it to Della.

  I couldn’t have it against my skin.

  And besides, something this important should be read correctly with no pauses or stumbles. Something this important should be burned and never read at all.

  Della flinched as she took it from my hands. “A suicide note.”

  “Yes.” Martin Murray nodded. “One that explains a little but not a lot. But one that I feel will mean more to you than to us.”

  With that cryptic comment, he left us to talk to the team by the wardrobe, and Della and I drifted to the window where torches and spotlights shone through the darkness, illuminating skeletons of those who weren’t as lucky as us.

  I coughed and swallowed, my hands balling. “Should we read it?”

  Della skimmed it. “I don’t know.”

  We stood there for a moment, soaking in the ramifications. Finally, I stood taller. “Read it.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Crossing my arms, I waited.

  Slowly, she smoothed the page and began.

  “To whomever finds this.

  “My name is Marion Mclary and I have ten minutes left to live. When my husband returns from the fields, I’m going to take the shotgun and shoot him in his heartless chest and then, I’m going to put myself out of my misery.”

  Della glanced up, her face whitening before her eyes locked back on the page.

  “The kids are gone. Half of them sold at rock bottom price to Kyle Harold and half poisoned by the creek. At least none of them will escape and tell the world what we’ve done.

  Then again, I don’t care what happens after I’ve gone. I don’t care that everything will come to light, and the church will turn on us, and our friends will know the truth.

  I don’t care because I stopped caring the day I married into this evil and went along with my husband’s plans.

  I’m not entirely to blame. After all, I did become the buyer and seller of our little worker bees. As far as I was concerned, we needed labour and labour ain’t cheap…unless you buy it young.

  I could’ve continued with what we were doing. This isn’t the kind of letter where I confess to my crimes and beg for forgiveness.

  There is nothing to forgive. We lived our life the way we wanted.

  I don’t care Willem raped those little girls. I don’t care he mutilated those little boys. Everyone needs discipline in their lives. Even if those lives were short.

  I know I have a one-way ticket to the devil, and I’m not gonna fill this page with lies.

  But I am going to admit a secret that Willem never knew. The secret that’s the reason why I’m pulling the trigger.

  Della Donna Mclary.

  My baby girl.

  She wasn’t supposed to be born. I tried to kill her. I tried to starve her out. But the church says thou shall not abort, so I let her come into our dark world.

  And for a time, I didn’t feel any different.

  I didn’t see her in the girls screaming as Willem molested them. I didn’t see her in the kids starving in the barn.

  She wasn’t like them.

  But then one day, I did see her like them. I saw her eyes flicker as Willem booted that boy from the kitchen. I saw her scream when Willem shot the kid for letting the sheep out.

  And I knew she’d either end up in her father’s bed, or worse, become like us.

  Just because I’m not apologising for what we did, doesn’t mean I didn’t know it was against the Lord’s teachings.

  And for once, I wanted to do right by God rather than just sing pretty hymns in church.

  I was going to do the world a favour.

  I was going to kill her before she became me.

  For weeks, I tried to do it.

  Holding her under in the bath until she blew bubbles.

  Clamping my hand over her nose and mouth until she kicked.

  I could inspect a child from some white trash family and offer money for their offspring, yet I couldn’t kill my own daughter.

  Then I saw that skinny runt of a boy think about escaping. He snuck into the house one night, scurrying like a rat in the dark, stealing food and placing them in Willem’s backpack by the door.

  Normally, I would’ve told Willem to shoot him. To kill him dead before the sun rose.

  But…he was my chance.

  My one chance at killing my daughter without having her blood on my hands.

  So…I let him believe he wasn’t noticed.

  I held my tongue when he looked at my Della, and I watched that scrawny toad make his move.

  When he slipped from the locked barn the next night—revealing a security issue�
�I knew it was time and grabbed my sleeping daughter and stuffed her in the backpack where his rations were ready to escape.

  She was a good girl. She didn’t wake up as I zipped her in and hid her in the darkness.

  That little rat poked his head into my house, sniffed around, then slung on the backpack with surprise in his eyes from the extra weight.

  He looked as if he’d take it off again and check his supplies.

  I couldn’t have that.

  So, I yelled for my sleeping husband. I told him we had a runaway and to get the shotgun.

  And then, we had some sport as that little boy took off in the corn, bounding like the rat he was, carrying my daughter with him.

  I hoped a bullet would take them both out.

  I hoped two mistakes could be fixed with one.

  But Willem missed.

  And to this day, I don’t know if the boy and my baby are dead.

  I like to think they are because she was born to evil, and he was sold to the devil. Nothing good can come of them surviving.

  But now, my secret is on paper, and I’m ready to kill my husband. I blame him for not knowing if she’s dead or not. I blame him for this life of dirt and destitution. I blame him for everything, and I’ve had enough.

  I’ve had enough of the raping, killing, and struggling. We have labour, yet the farm doesn’t grow food anymore. We have stock, but they get sick and die.

  Consider this my intent to cancel the missing person’s report that Willem filed. Turned out, that man rather loved his daughter. He loved her enough to want her in all the wrong ways. I knew. I saw it before he could touch her.

  At least I saved her from that fate.

  I am Marion Mclary, and I don’t apologise for what me and my husband are.

  I only apologise for letting my spawn run away and not knowing if she’ll grow up to be like us.

  She deserves to die.

  Just like that boy who took her.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  REN

  * * * * * *

  2020