Rick was kind, supporting the woman on his shoulder as he dragged her up the hill to the prison. Daryl would have pulled her by her hair, prying answers from her throat himself. There was a mix of her blood and of the dead over her torso and he could see where she had been grazed by a bullet.
"That's Ivy knife," Carl called as he chased after Rick and Daryl, carrying the basket with both hands on the handle. It was heavy from the weight of supplies and he nearly tripped over loose soil as he ran. "The pink one."
Daryl's mind was racing, trying to lace together facts. All he knew was that his daughter was somewhere unarmed and a stranger had an intimate piece of her, something she wouldn't have parted from without force. He wanted to drive an arrow through her throat and peel back her skin himself until he rattled loose whatever he needed to know.
They got her onto the floor outside of the cell block and she lunged for the sword that Rick kicked backwards. "No. We're not going to hurt you unless you try something stupid first, all right?"
Daryl sneered. "Who the hell is she?"
"You wanna tell us your name?" He asked her, trying to force through the haze blinding the woman. Pain had her face set tight and her eyes jumped between him and Rick, trying to assume the larger threat. It was a similar look to how Ivy had been at the farm guessing between the men and settling herself at one end away from them.
She forced herself upwards and slid backwards against the wall, bracing her spine to something solid. "Those supplies," she said, jerking her chin towards Carl and the basket, "were dropped by a young Asian guy. He was with a pretty girl."
Maggie was in the doorway of the room and she made a terrible cry, hand covering her mouth to try and hold back the hurt. Daryl thought of Ivy with her braid he had shaped himself out of her thick hair, blonde from the sun, pieces of gold wound together by his own hands.
"What happened?" Rick asked.
"Were they attacked?" Added Hershel, standing up with his crutches. If Ivy was his, Glenn had become Hershel's. Maggie's love for the boy laced him into their family unit, securing his name until it was undistinguishable from either of his children.
Her face twisted. "They were taken."
"Taken? By who?"
"By the same son of a bitch who shot me."
Daryl was stepping forward without realizing it and was in her face, his hand on the leg and squeezing tight. "Those are our people. You tell us what happened now!"
The pain jumped through her like a lance and she cried out, "Don't you ever touch me again!"
She tried forcing herself backwards and away from Daryl's grip but the wall held her in place, no different from how Randal had sought comfort in the the wooden planks behind his back when Daryl broke pieces of the boy. It was an easy routine to settle back into, the way a hand could be a graceless wreck of a thing, driving agony into the bone.
He didn't need a knife for this kind of art.
"You'd better start talking," he warned, easing up as her breathing came out ragged, voice thready. "You're gonna have a much bigger problem than a gunshot wound."
"Find 'em yourself."
Rick's light touch forced him back, gently pushing between him and the woman. "Hey, stand down. Give her a minute."
Daryl wanted to scream. He had known something was coming around the corner and he had still watched Ivy leave out the prison gate, somewhere he couldn't see. It was his fault for trusting the world and not remembering Randal's voice spilling out like a trance, describing a man and his daughters at night, their backs to the wilds and the kind of men who grew in the dark. He should have refused to let Ivy leave. She would have been angry and upset with him but she was his child, something that he was supposed to guard because he knew better.
Rick was clean from the gore he had caused but something was hard beneath his skin, almost a shade of Shane appearing in the merciless light of the prison. He stood with his shoulders back and hands curled lightly into fists, a bit of steel running through. "You came here for a reason."
Glenn, Ivy.
Two more names for the ground to take.
The woman looked to the side, jaw twitching. "There's a town. Woodbury. About seventy five survivors. I think they were taken there."
He suddenly had a direction to aim for. A vague outline that he could fight against. It braced him upright and he took cold delight in the knowledge.
"A whole town?"
"It's run by this guy who calls himself the Governor- pretty boy, charming, Jim Jones type."
"He got muscle?" Daryl asked as he tried to consider his options. Woodbury had to be close enough that the woman had managed on foot while wounded. Ivy's chances would shrink away the longer she was gone and the fact that she was plucked away to some secondary location meant nothing good was on the table.
"Paramilitary wannabes. They have armed sentries on every wall."
Rick tilted his head to the side. "You know a way in?"
"The place is secure from walkers, but we could slip our way through."
"How'd you know how to get here?"
"They mentioned a prison," she said. "Said it was a clear shot."
Maggie was looking at Daryl with dark eyes equal to his own. He nodded once and turned around, aiming for the weapon stock they had accumulated from taking over the prison. Bullets were a sacred currency but they had better pieces now, things that might help when facing the living instead of the dead.
Ivy would be scared. He trusted Glenn but if someone had the upper hand, there was only so much the boy could manage. If the Governor had turned his daughter into a body, Daryl would set the horizon on fire and raze the Earth with his own hands. He would crawl if that was what it took, anything to get some kind of justice.
He buried the illusion of the diner deep within his mind and focused on counting bullets, the sins he would take onto his soul.
.
"How do you know we can trust her?" Oscar whispered, half turned to watch Hershel finish stitching the wound.
"This is Ivy and Glenn. Why are we even debating?" Beth hissed. Her face was flushed in outrage and Daryl listened for the pang of hurt clinging to the words. She was beside Maggie with her hand clutching the hem of her shirt, pulling her sister against her side.
"We ain't. I'm going after them."
Rick shook his head, coming up with the math in his head. "Well, this place sounds pretty secure. You can't go alone."
"I'll go," Beth said.
"We're gonna need people staying back in case this goes South. Beth, you should be in the guard tower keeping watch where I was," Maggie interjected, giving her younger sister a task as she subtly pulled her back from the mission. "Take one of the rifles and sit up there where no one can see you."
"We've got flash bangs and some tear gas. You never know what you're gonna need," Daryl said. He sized up his options and mentally lined Oscar and Maggie up, the kind of muscle needed to take on walls and enemies. It wasn't the same as preparing to break through a line of walkers coming in against them and he wasn't sure what kind of violence they would be able to pull through.
Maggie had never had to aim her weapon at the living before. He hoped that she could, that she could understand in the moment that sometimes a person had to pull the trigger first to right the world again.
Rick came to his side and he realized that the man was pairing himself together, part of the ragged team. There world had just begun to line itself up again, pulling back from the grief. Carol's empty grave had been a taunt. He wasn't even sure if he would see Ivy breathing or if she was already gone. If Glenn was still alive.
The idea of more loss hollowed Daryl out until he was nothing but a razor point prepared to cut.
.
"They have patrols," Michonne said, slamming the car door shut. "We're better off on foot."
"How far? Night's coming."
The shadows were growing longer and the air had a bite to it, a bit of winter still holding through watery sunlight. If they had the time Daryl would have hidden the car better instead of leaving it parked on the side of the road where it sat clean, no dust streaking the windows. It was a bit of a give away if a patrol happened upon it.
"It's a mile. Maybe two."
The woman hadn't complained about sitting with her leg bent in the backseat and Daryl had been spiteful, yanking his seat right back to cut off room. She was prepared to hike through the woods with fresh stitches and he wasn't sure what really pulled her forward.
He didn't think it was truly altruistic.
They each loaded up with weaponry and Rick turned towards Daryl, face drawn tight. "When Carl took that bullet back on the farm, I saw the whole world stop moving."
He grunted, slamming the trunk shut tight. It was a motion almost similar to a coffin snapping shut. Daryl didn't want to think about the blood on Rick's shirt that day, the way he had run miles for a chance of keeping his child alive and breathing. He didn't want to picture Lori jumping on the back of a horse with a stranger for a chance of seeing if her blood could make it another moment longer.
If Lori were here, she'd already be walking to Woodbury.
Maggie waited for him in a water lance of sunlight. He fell into step beside her and pushed deeper into the woods. She didn't say anything at all but her hand snaked out and grabbed his arm tight, holding it for a moment as if she were were seeking reassurance. Her anxiety was a reflection of what he felt, the way their heartstrings had gotten knotted up and severed from what made their hearts beat.
"Watch your step," he muttered, pulling her around a fallen branch. The mud was soft despite the cold air and if things went bad, the others would have a scrap of a trail to follow back to the car. Rick still couldn't track worth a damn but five sets of tracks was like an arrow forged into the ground.
Michonne limped at his heels and he felt the weight of her stare on his back. It made his old scars itch somewhat.
"Glenn practically ran Atlanta himself," he said into the quiet air. "Place gone to shit and he was the only one strolling through the streets, looking for candy bars and whatever. No one else had the balls to cross the city limits."
Maggie looked at him with curiosity. "He went there?"
"Almost every day."
He was always carrying back a bag of loot. Daryl had noticed him with his light step even as he fumbled around the campsite, clearly not accustomed to living off the land. It had been hard to dismiss him, though, when he was the one tossing rail lube in his direction for his crossbow.
Maggie dropped back some so she was beside Michonne, clearly sizing her up from wary side glances. In her absence Rick settled into his side with a quick step. "I know what you did for me, for my baby while I was..."
Daryl was carrying his crossbow in his hands even though the weight was heavy. He wanted to hurt something. He wanted to see a target and throw himself at it so he could earn a bit of blood.
"Thank you," Rick finished, settling on the words with a hard conviction.
"She's your blood."
"Blood doesn't always matter."
Daryl considered the invisible band of ivy wrapped around his wrist, the way his kid had a scowl identical to his own.
His heart had changed the minute he found Ivy hiding in that closet. She had taken his soul and wrenched it tight and something was gone from it, pocketed by the girl without her ever truly knowing what she had done. Daryl wondered if he somehow would know if Ivy had died somewhere, if his heart would know that his single purpose was plucked out of the world. If he could do enough damage to settle whatever had been done to her.
He could feel gravity pulling him down. Time was a grudge on his shoulder, minutes tumbling away as if Daryl was the king of nothing at all.
.
Ivy's throat was raw from screaming.
When he had finished with her, he had pulled back and appreciated the blood smeared across the table, the way bruises were already forming on her skin like dabs of ink. Tender little marks that he pushed on with greedy fingers, dragging out painful cries.
His face hadn't stopped bleeding the entire time. Ivy looked at the crimson on his mouth and chin and thought how it matched her own, the exact colour, the way he had cut her skin to leave something on her body that she would never heal from.
Merle had stood at the door and gazed at the floor by her feet. She was barely covered by her sports bra but it had been ripped at the side from where he had teased the fabric with a knife to make her cry. No one was looking at her like she was a person, like she was just a girl that wanted to live.
She was flesh and bone, something to be hollowed out and left in pieces.
"Boy picked clean that walker," Merle said to the muffled silence of the room. His voice no longer had that amused quality. "Still standing."
Someone had called the man Governor and it stuck in Ivy's mind like a vice. She memorized the shape of his face to picture the skull beneath, the bone that she wanted to smash into pieces. He had bled once and she wondered if she could manage a second blow. Justice was a set of scales rapidly falling in one direction and Ivy wanted one opportunity to take something back.
"Guess we'll just have to pay him a visit," The Governor said easily even if his breathing was a little ragged. Ivy watched as the man tucked the monster back inside the shadows and smiled out, all good natured and satisfied with his upper hand. "You wanted to see him, didn't you?"
Ivy was mute. She didn't move until he grabbed her by the arm and shoved her up, feet struggling to get under herself properly as she was forced towards the door and away from the table. She refused to cry even as salt stung her eyes.
Another door swung open and Merle barked in, "Hey! Drop it!"
Glenn was standing with a chair leg hefted in the air like a club, his hands shaking. Ivy's desire to stand strong wavered at the sight of blood on his face, the pain etched into his expression.
He didn't stand down until the Governor reached for the gun at his hip, still holding Ivy's arm like she was a puppet at his disposal. Ivy wished he would take the swing. If Glenn killed the right man first he might have a chance even in the tight confines of the room. She didn't have to live to see him run.
He dropped the club and it clattered to the ground. "We're through with games," the Governor said.
Ivy had been a game. It had been amusement unraveling her, pulling at her girlhood until it stretched tight like a rope. His words rattled her and she felt hate swell up in her chest. The gun looked so light in the man's hand as he held up towards her head. "Now one of you is gonna give up your camp."
She could have handled death. Glenn could have survived it, found an opportunity for himself to hold out even if she hit the floor with a bullet to the brain.
It hadn't been fair when the gun shifted towards Glenn. The Governor walked up and drove the point of the gun into his forehead and Ivy knew how cruel the man was, how much he liked seeing blood and hurt and being the one to cause the hurt. "The prison," she gasped, stepping forward. Ivy didn't want to exist in the room with Glenn's body at her feet like the walker in the corner. She didn't want to picture Maggie's face with new grief, just as awful as it had been the day the barn had been cracked open and pieces of their family butchered in a rain of bullets.
Merle said something and she couldn't hear it, not with her ears ringing. Her own betrayal was a clamp around her lungs that cut her off from the air in the room. Ivy could have survived being hurt. It was different when she was looking at Glenn's bruised fists, the horror glazing his eyes.
He would hate her, she realized. Glenn would hate her for being so weak. Daryl, when he found out about her true cowardice would also despise her.
"That place is overrun," the monster said.
"We took it," Ivy said, thinking of Daryl. She wanted to see him one last time even if he would hate her forever.
"How many are you?"
"Five." The lie came easy. She had bent and given up their security. At least she could buy a small window of possibility. "We lost people when we cleared the field."
Glenn didn't flinch from the gun or from her words but his mouth curled backwards, a show of disgust. "Don't," he hissed out.
The men were satisfied like vultures having picked clean a carcass. Merle looked at her with a hard face for the first time since he had tape her wrists to that chair and she couldn't read the expression properly but something tugged at his mouth.
They each turned to leave but the Governor paused beside her, making Ivy flinch as his hand came up to her face to stroke her cheek. "Hey, hey," he shushed her, catching a stray tear with his fingers. "It's all right."
Ivy gazed into nothing as his hands pulled her into his body, forcing her to lean against his chest as he kissed her temple. She shuddered and pulled back in an attempt to escape his cold grip. Glenn's face twisted as he watched the man touch her. "She's a fucking kid," he bit out, enraged.
The Governor looked oddly pleased at the reaction, that he had managed to drag out a new kind of pain. He shoved Ivy at Glenn and she went quickly, stumbling into Glenn's arms that caught her like a shield, pulling her against her so he could cover her. The kindness of it drew more tears as she shrank against him, wishing it was Daryl.
The door slammed shut behind her and she flinched, a new cry rising up through her chest. "I'm sorry," she gasped out, trying to smother the ache in her bones. "I'm so sorry."
Glenn's arms held her upright and kept her there. "You did good lying," he whispered into her ear. She barely heard him and he repeated it, standing steady. "That was good. You were good. This is not your fault."
He pulled back and grabbed the hem of his shirt, struggling to drag it up over his head when his broken ribs caught, halting his movement. Ivy fumbled to help when his arms failed him and he pushed it into her arms when it was free, eyes jumping away from her exposed shoulders and stomach. It was kind of him not to mention the scars at her back, the ones the Governor had traced with a greedy finger, that sacred map of her childhood.
"Did he-"
She jerked her head sideways. The man had touched and taken but there had been some invisible line in the sand. "He barely touched me," she lied.
Ivy had forgotten what people could do.
Glenn hesitantly took her hand. There was a bandage across her wrist and he didn't touch it, even as his eyes looked at it, that bit of pink coming through white. "Hey, we gotta get ready."
"What?"
He stumbled over the walker in the corner and grabbed the one arm, groaning from pain. "Hold on," he gasped out as he yanked backwards, slowly tearing the limb from the socket. It made an awful noise and Ivy could almost feel it herself, a phantom pain lancing through her own shoulder as Glenn removed it.
He then took the severed arm and broke a bone by the force of his desperation. "Take this," he said. His voice rasped and she smelt the dead air, black blood smeared from the postmortem violence. Ivy took the bone in her hand and tried not to shake.
Glenn had taken a beating and kept strong. He had been taped to a chair and had a walker set on him and he survived it. Glenn hadn't broken and she had and Ivy owed it to him to stand a little bit more.
.
Daryl knelt in the shadows as he gazed up at the wall. It was sturdier than the prison fence but lower, bits of barbed wire laced around the top. He could spot people walking back and forth, the shape of guns at their backs and in their hands.
Michonne huffed softly and called them backwards, scuttling the edges of light and darkness as they crept towards the side of the town. He tried to see the buildings and picture which one had his daughter but all he saw was bits of lights burning away, chewing the night up in a domestic image.
Maggie was close to Michonne with her gun in hand and she ducked a low hanging branch with ease. Her shoulders were set hard like Daryl's own.
There was a small weakness along the wall that Michonne exposed, gently pulling at a sheet of metal that hadn't been secured properly. It fold with some ease and Oscar helped, trying to soften the noise that it made. It was like crossing under water and coming out the other side, stepping out onto the dark side street between two buildings, following the woman as she navigated to a food storeroom with a door left unlocked.
Careless arrogance.
"This where you were held?" Rick asked, taking point on sweeping the rooms.
"I was questioned."
"Any idea where else they could be?"
Daryl scouted for a scrap of evidence of either Glenn or Ivy. He could see people walking down the street in pairs towards a bigger light. "I thought you said there was a curfew."
"The street is packed during the day. Those are stragglers."
"If anyone comes in here, we're sitting ducks," Rick said, voicing Daryl's thoughts. "We gotta move."
"They could be in his apartment."
"Yeah? What if they ain't?" Daryl snapped, shoving away the image. If a man took a girl, the last place he wanted her was in the man's own home. People had a way of being comfortable when they were framed by walls that they controlled, hidden from view by a roof and a door.
"Then we'll look somewhere else," Michonne said easily.
Rick circled over to the woman, looking down at her. "You said you could help us."
"She's doing what she can. This place is a maze and none of us no where to start. Quit picking at her and lets pick a direction," Maggie cut in. She looked rattled even as she clenched her jaw, considering the group. "This is our family and Michonne is not the enemy here."
"It's the blind leading the blind," Daryl mused, wishing he had a cigarette to settle his nerves. "Let's split up."
Someone knocked on the door and they all dropped back from the sound of the doorknob turning. "I know you're in here," a man called, jingling keys in his hand. "I saw you moving from outside. All right, now. You're not supposed to be in here and you know it."
Daryl jumped through a curtain dividing the room and got him with a forearm braced against his windpipe, shoving the man backwards into a wall. "Shut up and get on your knees," he warned, gun comfortable in his hand. Rick came around them and took out zip ties to bind his wrists. "Where's our people?"
"I don't know, I don't know," the man gasped, looking around at the people lined up.
"You're holding some of our people. Where are they?" He hissed, shoving the gun harder into the man's forehead.
"I don't know," he repeated.
Daryl passed the gun backwards so Maggie took it and yanked out a knife, slashing the man's throat before he could scream.
Glenn shoved forward first, knocking one man down so Ivy could slash his throat with the bone. He went for Merle but the man was prepared for it, shifting backwards and using his one hand to drag Glenn onto the floor. Ivy forced herself to take satisfaction of the blood on her hand, the inelegant method of killing. The man might have meant something from the Governor and she had cut him out of life.
She hoped he was able to feel that loss, his world a little smaller with one man dead.
Someone shot a gun and she yanked backwards towards a wall. Glenn was kicking at Merle and trying to loosen his grip but it was pointless, that cruel knife effectively killing his fight. Ivy froze helplessly as she watched the scales slide sideways again and was unable to stop their chance from dying.
Glenn gasped from the floor.
She didn't see who yanked the weapon from her hands but she was shoved forward, hard ground biting at her knees. "Governor wants the kid to watch," Merle barked, yanking two bags from his pocket.
Ivy sobbed as Merle circled them both. Glenn was trying to keep steady but she saw the way hope slid from his hands, as pointless as trying to hold a fistful of sand in the wind. Her hand jumped out and she grabbed at his for a final touch that wasn't cruel and he let her. "It'll be okay," he lied, mouth bleeding. "You'll be okay."
The bag went over her face first and the world went black. Someone said something that she couldn't hear and she was yanked up. Her wrists were bound again and it caused new pain where the bindings rubbed against the bandage. Ivy started walking blindly in the direction she was pushed in.
White light flashed and she reared back at something exploding at her feet, men shouting. Someone had a hand on her wrist and she was yanked to the side, tripping over her own feet as she tried to pull against the hold. It was two men, she realized, bracketing her in and drawing her away from a gun being fired.
Ivy twisted and the one man practically hauled her up, dragging her against his shoulder and in the direction he wanted. The grip didn't yield and she couldn't find a way to soften it.
She also couldn't feel where Glenn was. The ground slid away from her feet and she was helpless, swept along in a river of smoke and bodies. "I'm going to," she gasped, pain lancing through her side, "kill every single one of you fucking pigs."
The bag was dragged off from her head and she realized it was Oscar's hands pulling it free. She snapped her head around and saw that it was Daryl pulling her along and something clicked back into place in her chest. Ivy stopped fighting him and got her feet moving as she tried to help put space between them and the smoke, feeling the first wave of true safety.
Rick and Maggie had Glenn between them and Oscar dropped backwards to check their blindspot with his gun for anyone following.
"Gotta get inside," Rick whispered as they raced down the street, supporting more of Glenn's weight on his shoulder as the man folded forwards. They got inside a room and he went down hard.
"Ain't no way out back here," Daryl snapped, looking around even as his hands grabbed Ivy by the shoulders, pinning her tight to him like he needed her right there where he could hold her.
"How did you find us?" Ivy asked into Daryl's shoulder, her bloodied hands grabbing at his shirt like a vice. She never wanted to let go again.
"How bad are you hurt?" Rick asked as he stalked by, checking the dark corners of the strange room.
"I'm fine," Ivy said, trying to pull back some to check Glenn. Daryl gave her some slack but then she saw his face when he looked at her shirt, the one Glenn had given her in exchange for nothing. Something dark flashed in his eyes and Ivy felt small in his gaze, felt his fingers dig into her shoulders some on reflex.
Please still love me, she thought.
"Where's Michonne?" Maggie asked and Ivy blinked at the stranger's name.
"She was right behind us."
"Maybe she was spotted. Want me to go look for her?" Oscar offered, standing like a pillar by the door.
Rick jerked his head. "No. We gotta get them out of here. She's on her own."
"Daryl," Glenn called from the floor, looking up with a bloodied face. "This was Merle. He did this."
"You saw him?" Rick asked.
"Face to face. Threw a walker at me and he was gonna execute me while Ivy watched."
Daryl was strung tight as wire. Ivy felt the way the information caught at his nerves. "S-so my brother's this governor?"
"No. Someone else. He's his lieutenant or something."
"Does he know I'm still with you?"
"Yeah."
Daryl pulled back and reached for a gun. Ivy felt suddenly ice cold in the absence of his arms. "If Merle's around, I need to see him."
It was betrayal and Ivy was sinking into the ground. Her existence couldn't beat the ties of blood. Daryl had a lifetime with his brother and she was just some feral bitch he found in the woods and felt pity for. The Governor had striped her of anything good and there was nothing of value she could offer.
"Look at what he did!" Glenn hissed, face dark from bleeding. "He's part of this. He knew Ivy's your kid."
"I told him where the prison was," Ivy whispered into the dark before she could risk looking back at Daryl. He needed to know the facts so he could make the safe decision without looking back. Ivy was nothing and Merle was blood, her voice a ragged wisp from screaming. "I couldn't hold out."
It was her failure that pressed her down.
Rick grabbed her hand and leaned down. "Don't. No need to apologize."
His voice was so gentle it stung Ivy. He brushed aside her failure like it was nothing. Glenn had taken all that pain for nothing and she had given it away so freely.
"They're going to come looking for us," she told him as she felt the darkness at her back pull sharp.
Daryl practically shoved Rick aside and dropped down to kneel. He held out his hands for her to decide and when she gave a hesitant nod, he touched her arms. "Did my brother hurt you?"
Ivy tried to tug away but his grip held her there. Daryl plucked the truth from her silence and something changed in his expression. He turned his head towards Glenn. "He knew that Ivy's my daughter?"
The word caught her heart for a moment. Despite everything that had been taken from her, Ivy was suddenly okay. Daryl was keeping her and had drawn a line down by a single title. She was his. Ivy belonged to Daryl and it made her chest ache in a different way.
"Yeah."
"We gotta start moving. Glenn can barely walk and Ivy's hurt. How are we going to make it out of here?" Rick cut in, pulling out a spare handgun. Merle had dropped her knife on the pavement but taken the gun she had once stolen from the RV on the farm and she missed the familiarity of it at her side.
"We still got some flash grenades," Oscar whispered as he checked the window. "There's a wall a clear shot from here. If we grab one of those blankets, we could lay it out over the barbwire and jump it."
"They could cut us off," Rick noted, coming to his side and scanning the street. "But it might be our best option."
It was the only option, she realized with dull horror. Daryl's expression was hard and she could sense his mind spinning, playing at the odds and trying to pick a favourable outcome. "I can lay out some cover. Glenn's not gonna scale that wall without some help."
The adults were all piecing something together that Ivy wasn't clueing into until Rick came to her side. "No," she said, throat aching from the desperation of the word. "You can't."
"Don't let this be like Atlanta," Daryl threatened as he pulled back. Rick was grabbing at her arm and keeping her from Daryl.
She twisted helplessly but the man didn't relent his hold. "No, I want my dad. Get off of me," she snarled.
Rick shoved the gun into her hand and kept her close. "He'll be right behind us but we have to run now. Daryl can't move until we get over to safety."
Ivy didn't want to separate but Daryl was shaking his head. "C'mon. You run fast and I'll be there. No one is going to hurt you."
This was hurting her, she realized. Ivy wanted to grab his arm and anchor herself to him but the world wouldn't let her. Rick softened his hold when she stopped fighting him and grabbed his rifle, pointing it up to the door. "The minute we clear it you get out of here."
Oscar tossed the grenades and smoke rapidly poured out, creating a haze that they rushed through. Ivy kept close to Rick's side as he forced an opening under gunfire, Daryl veering off to take out some of the men perched up high. She could barely see the group as Rick led her closed to the vague outline of the wall, her ears ringing from gunfire.
"Behind you!" Daryl shouted, aiming at two men crouched behind a park bench. Ivy shrank and let Rick pull her further.
"Get cover!" Rick shouted at Oscar as they ducked around a corner, sorting through supplies and pulling out the last of the grenades. "We gotta gun it to the wall."
"I'll lay out some fire," Daryl said, reloading his gun with a quick hand.
Maggie shook her head, eyes looking red from the smoke. "No, we gotta stay together."
"Too hairy. I'll be right behind you. You got my kid?" He waited for Rick to nod before he took a second to squeeze her shoulder. Daryl pivoted and tucked low, getting a good angle on the numbers closing in on them. "Ready?"
Ivy staggered out after Rick, trying to pick off men shooting at them. Her aim was off and her hands shook. Oscar was working at getting Glenn over the wall, a blanket sprawled out over the wire and was physically lifting him over while Maggie kept cover.
One of her shots grazed a man's leg and knocked him down. Ivy breathed out and took aim again. She could feel Rick go tense beside her and looked up to see a man stepping through the smoke, leaning into the sight glass as he locked in on Oscar and Glenn who were up higher than the rest of them.
It was like shooting a walker. Her hand yanked up and she fired first, muscle memory of easy violence. He went down from a head shot and Ivy felt cold from the force of it, Rick startling back to action at her side as he started shooting at exposed attackers.
Oscar got Glenn over the wall and Maggie was at his heels as they both went over to the relative safety of the other side. Ivy could hear Daryl's gun somewhere in the distance but Rick was herding her back with quick steps, getting her to the bus so she could climb it, nearly tumbling over the wall as a bullet caught the metal by her heel.
She landed badly, catching her side on an exposed barb. Ivy felt skin rip and hot pain burst over her ribs. Oscar got her up to her feet and was pulling her back so Rick had space to land.
The guns kept firing and Daryl was a lone song on the other side, unrelenting as he kept guard. Ivy tried to turn back but Rick was shoving her forward into the darkness, forcing her further and further.
.
Rick had an arm over her shoulder to brace her against him as they watched the shadows shift, searching for the smooth movements of a hunter. Ivy was practically vibrating, desperate to see Daryl appear in front of her, willing him back. She wanted him to call her his daughter again because she was a selfish thing, desperate for more and not ready for him to be gone forever.
Branches cracked and a woman appeared at their sides, gasping as she leaned low. They all turned their guns on her and Rick disarmed her of a wicked looking sword. Something was said but she slid from focus, searching for Daryl and finding nothing in turn.
"Where are the rest of your people?" The woman asked, hands raised helplessly. Ivy had only caught a glimpse of her from before but she was hurt, covered in fresh blood. Her expression matched the way Ivy felt on the inside, broken and ruined.
"Daryl's missing. Did you see him?" Maggie asked.
She shook her head slowly. "No one."
Ivy pressed a hand to her side and tried to swallow the pain. Oscar was holding Glenn up but he craned his head back towards the lights at the wall.
"You'll need help getting them back to the prison," the woman said, pushing hair back behind her shoulder. Her one hand left a streak of blood on her sleeve like she had cut her palm off of something. "Or to go back in there for Daryl. Either way, you need me."
Ivy needed Daryl. She felt like she was burning up from the inside out, as if she was swallowed a mouthful of hot ash and it was setting her on fire.
"Send her back with these two," Oscar interrupted. "We go back in while they've got their guard dropped, scout around. Michonne can handle Glenn and Ivy."
She snapped her head up, eyes wide. "No, no," she said, making an effort to shove past Rick. The wall loomed like an unpleasant smudge in the night and her bones ached even as she tried to hide the fresh blood with her hand. "I have to go back. I'm not leaving him there."
Rick pushed her back slightly. "I'm not leaving anyone behind but you can't go back there."
"I've got them," the woman said from behind. "I'll get them back to the car and we can wait there in the trees."
He looked bothered by the offer but Ivy was trying to snake by him still, following an invisible thread from her heart to wherever Daryl was. Glenn also tried to move but Maggie cut him off, shaking her head. "You can barely walk. I need you here while we do this here."
"Please," Ivy whispered, that word ringing in her mind from how many times she had cried it out. She hated it. Ivy never wanted to beg for another thing again but she would for this. "I can't go."
"I've got your dad," Rick promised. "You gotta work with me. It'll be okay."
Ivy felt the night take more from her, feeling heartstrings break from the cut of a knife, the catch of barbed wire at skin.