my tears ricochet

Chapter Four

Andrea had shot Daryl and Ivy's hands hadn't stopped shaking since she saw him go down on the edge of the field. Just days before, they had been standing in the same place, almost on the edge of the world as they gazed out at the farmhouse.

Hershel had been the one to look at the damage and sigh, his hands already moving towards the orange pill bottles with the little white antibiotics and painkillers. The little boy recovering from a gunshot wound himself had already burned through a good portion of whatever they had available, and Hershel looked like he was tired of playing God to people who came back broken.

Ivy had sat vigil on the wooden chair in the bedroom while he slept but had fled when she saw how restless he was, how close the man was to waking up. She didn't want him to know that she had been perched there waiting for a good sign, fear tight in her chest. Daryl hadn't let her stab him that first day, but he had been the one who taught her to shoot and didn't get ugly over the stolen gun.

It had been a test for Daryl. Ivy hadn't been subtle the other day, creeping out of the house with her stolen contraband, and when he followed her, she gave him an opportunity to react. Ivy had been expecting a slap to the face or anything to make her feel small in his shadow, but he had been almost good about it. They both knew the handgun was stolen and it was from his group, which would have justified him if he'd taken that swing.

But he hadn't.

Daryl had gotten ugly about Shane poking around Ivy, but in a way that felt like a protective vice around her. He wouldn't let Shane hurt her. She wasn't sure why, but it felt nice. For the first time in her life it was like having back up.

The group unnerved her but it wasn't bad, clinging to the outskirts of Hershel's family. She didn't belong but Beth let her tag along, feeding the chickens and dragging buckets of water for the cows. Beth would talk and Ivy could just listen and let her take the lead. They drank glasses of sweet tea on the back porch away from the eyes of the group and at night, like this one, she would lead her to Maggie's bedroom so they could sit crosslegged on the bed and paint their nails with Maggie's collection of polish.

Beth had a gentle hand when it came to painting Ivy's nails, which had been cut down and buffed from their previous ragged state with no comment. She had picked an aqua blue that reminded her of the community swimming pool behind the school she had grown up knowing, the tiles slick with water droplets. Beth hummed while she worked, teasing the edges of a song out as she admired the layers of varnish.

"Daddy mention anything about sending the group away?" Maggie asked from where she sat, perched on a chair at the desk, a romance novel propped up on the monitor of a dead computer. "He wasn't happy about that gun being fired."

Beth shrugged, looking up and over to her sister. "He said he was mad and that they couldn't stay forever. I don't think he believes that girl can be found."

Sophia, Ivy thought. Her twin, somehow, in all of this. Daryl had pulled her out of a box expecting another girl, and weren't they really the same deep down? Girls left to fend for themselves out in the wild.

"I don't know how I feel about that. Feels cruel making them leave."

Ivy hunched her shoulders, trying to escape the problem looming overhead. She had been the one to tell Daryl she was leaving after one meal but here she was, sitting on the bed and letting the older girl tend to her nails. Would she be expected to leave with the group? She didn't want to leave Daryl, for all that she didn't fully trust him. But Hershel had been kind, giving her the things she had pretended she didn't need. Ivy had told herself in the woods that all she needed to survive was the scraps left behind and she would be all the quicker for it.