my tears ricochet

Chapter Thirty Three

His name was Carlos. The Governor had snapped at him to hold her wrists tighter, his tattooed hands as awful as handcuffs. Ivy couldn't fight either of them. She screamed and heard it echo, the noise suspended between metal walls, striking the surface again and again like a battering ram.

She blinked and saw Philip's eyes turn dark. Carlos never looked away either, switching his hold to pin her upper arms flat to the table. The position hurt, making her shoulders twist in discomfort, the pressure as unbearable as the rest of it.

There was a butterfly turning circles along the ceiling, dancing in the arch of light cast from the one flickering bulb. Ivy watched it move, seeking an escape that wasn't to be found.

Carlos called her a feral bitch and laughed. She felt her head shift slightly against the table and blinked, the room falling away entirely. "Where the hell am I?" She rasped, forcing herself upright. Ivy's head had been cushioned by a folded up shirt but her neck ached from the angle she had been in, leaning against the window. "What have you done?"

Merle was driving. Michonne was in the front, her wrists similarly bound with a cord. Ivy shifted her hands and felt the wire dig into skin. "Relax," he advised, eyes flicking up in the mirror. A pair of fuzzy dice hung from it and they swayed as he pulled around a curve. "You're just coming along for a ride with your Uncle Merle."

"Merle's taking us to the Governor," Michonne said dryly, crossing her ankles. "Says he has a deal to make."

Daryl didn't know about this. This would be a new betrayal. Ivy wasn't even sure if Rick could have gone through with bringing Michonne over, no matter how hard his eyes looked. But Merle? She remembered that knife to her throat. He hadn't held back from beat Glenn black and blue. Ivy tried forgetting the sound of him fighting a walker while tied down to a chair, the sound of wood breaking and frustrated cries.

"Some brother you are."

"Don't worry about it, darling. Just doing my job."

The Governor would take her and keep her. That room would be her life and her grave. Ivy would become a body and then a memory and maybe someday she would vanish entirely.

"So, is this your thing? You take out the trash?" Michonne pryed, flexing her hands and feeling for any slack in the bindings.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, darlin'."

Ivy had secretly written down a list of people she hated. Of four names, only three were still living. Philip, Carlos, and Merle. The names felt like pearls on a strand of rope, turning in infinite circles. She wondered if she had the strength to force her arms over Merle's head and yank back, strangling him with the wire binding her wrists together.

He seemed to realize the thought in her head because he shook his head, whistling slightly. "I don't mind breaking your fingers, girl. Only need one hand to do it."

She kicked his seat in frustration.

Ivy wasn't even sure how she had gotten in this car. It wasn't one from the prison unless Merle pulled from the administrative side. Glenn had found a parking garage with a few civilian cars parked but he couldn't have taken her through the gate without anyone seeing her.

She remembered that she had been with Maggie and Carl between the fences, banging on kitchen pots with spoons to draw walkers to their side. Carol had been inside with Judith and Beth. She remembered the sounds they had made, the way walkers shifted in their direction with obvious hunger, obvious to the truck pulling around the yard and laying out new traps.

Everything else was hazed over. Her head hurt trying to think about. Ivy knew she had stuck close to Daryl before that, almost tripping over his feet. Rick had been apologetic with his distance but she had felt his eyes on her like a shadow she couldn't vanish from.