my tears ricochet

Part 114

But Merle's voice was stilling lashing at her, needling her on. "Better run for ya' daddy, girl."

Ivy always fought. She should've tried less, maybe, but it was instinct to lash back. She had been hurt so much. Her entire childhood was a mosaic of bruises and cuts. And this world was fire trying to take her down. Killing was a way of staying alive and she didn't want to be alive anymore. Ivy just wanted to leave it all behind. She wanted to go down with a clear mind and feel nothing.

Not the sting of grief. Not the loss. Not the knowledge that she would never get her family back.

She nearly died that night in the woods trying to avoid capture by the Saviours. Stars had pricked the sky overhead and that cruelty nearly blinded her, seeing Beth's star. Daryl's star.

Cosmic light wasn't enough to pull her through. She couldn't bury that grief yet. Ivy needed to fight first, needed to go down properly.

And then she could let it happen. Not until she made it right.

.

"What the hell?" Glenn hissed even as he threw himself at Daryl, the pair barely clearly the gate before being hauled to the general concept of safety arranged inside the big house. "What the fucking hell? You asshole. I hate you."

But his arms were locked around Daryl's shoulders. He hugged him so tight that it felt like Glenn's own bones were cracking at the force of it. He didn't bother looking at Beth because Maggie was wrapped around her sister so tight he could barely see where one Greene started and the other began; the pair crying at each other.

"Sorry," Daryl said softly, a confession of guilt so quiet Glenn barely heard it but felt it instead. "Took and got her, right before the whole place went under. Didn't let her go."

Maggie eased backwards, holding Beth by the hands, examining her like she was mapping her with her eyes. Coal dust made Beth's hair look grey and it matched the grim painting of walker blood smeared across her skin and dried on. But her arm had a darkening bruise that showed the force of Daryl's grip, something that made the man wince to see. "They were everywhere," Beth said, squeezing Maggie's hands tight. "Daryl kept me going straight, followed them out to the other side."

"We tried to separate but got bunched in the middle. Easier to just head along with 'em. Figured we'd get home one way or another."

"You don't die," Maggie told Beth flatly, heat burning in her stare. "You don't ever get to do this to me again."

"I'm okay, honest."

"She needs water," Daryl interjected. "And I need a gun."

"We're holding that line," Rick said, squeezing Daryl's shoulder. "Haven't lost the place yet."

"Good. Don't."

More bullets fired off. The morning light had come and gone already; burning the sky clean. Glenn had felt sick watching from the look out as the two tried to get close to the hill but kept getting blocked off by accidental friendly fire or the current of the undead. Hours had gone through before they managed to get their feet on the soft swell of the land that came up in a hill, each step an inch that cost time. Saviours drove trucks around threw the herd with snipers up on the roofs, sending the walkers into a fury as they swung around, driving their bloody bullets their way whenever they tried to get a step beyond the walls.

They were being choked off.

Maggie grabbed Beth again, gentler, and held on. Her hand cradled the back of her sister's head like it was a precious thing, eyes squeezing tight as fragments of her heart clicked back into place. A new guilt rose up inside Glenn's own chest as he looked at the pair. "Daryl... Ivy got away from me."