my tears ricochet

Chapter 100

Ivy tried brushing her hair away from her face but something was keeping her hand from moving. Cold fear swept through her veins as she tried pulling against the handcuff, stretching the chain as tight as she could manage. Metal bit into her wrist, pressing deep into the scar tissue. "Just stop," she forced the words out, throat aching from screaming. "No more."

Dead faces flashed in her mind like fireworks. A foot kicked the mattress softly and she opened her eyes to see Glenn sitting on a wooden chair with a magazine open in his lap. "Hey."

Confusion ate away at some of the panic. Ivy recognized the vague shape of the clinic room, somewhat recognizable from a brief stay prior in a different time. Lamps were lit around the room and they scattered soft golden light. "Why am I here?"

One hand was locked into place with a handcuff securing her to the headboard. Ivy's other arm was uselessly pinned against her by means of a sling. "You were pretty banged up when they brought you in. Daryl just left to grab you some clean clothes and to get some stuff worked out real quick."

Ivy yanked harder on the handcuff, driving the metal even deeper into her wrist. She needed to escape before he came back. "Can you take this off?"

"Sorry, kid. Your dad gave me some pretty strict instructions and that wasn't an option on his list. He was pretty specific about what he wanted."

Exhaustion tugged at her suddenly and neutralized her desire to flee. A selfish part of Ivy wanted to relent entirely and sink back into the pillows and blankets, burrowing deep into sleep until she could wake up feeling safe again. Someone had tossed a knit blanket across her and the colourful granny squares winked up at her with little flowers. "He's not in charge of me," she frowned at Glenn. "I can make my own decisions."

Glenn rolled his magazine up and slid it into the pocket of his coat. "Daryl says when you stop with the self destructive tendencies, you get some personal rights back. Get some sleep. Take advantage of the quiet while you can."

There was an abandoned book sitting on the floor beside Glenn's feet. The title had a familiar look to it, like lace, and she gazed at it long enough that she managed to slide right back into oblivion, returning to the darkness that had made her real.

.

The second time Ivy woke up her head was spinning but the realization that she had freedom of her hand back made it tolerable. The handcuff was missing completely from the headboard and she took advantage of the absence by flexing her wrist and studying the careful binding of a bandage around the skin where she had been fighting with the restraint.

The room of the clinic was empty. No one was sitting vigil at her bedside, nothing was physically keeping her to the bed.

With some effort she managed to shove the blankets back off of her and get upright, awkwardly off balanced by her left arm confined to the sling. It would waste precious seconds trying to wrestle her way free from it so she tolerated it fin that moment, staggering across the floor to make it to the window.

Once Beth had left it unlocked for her. She had used it to slip through under the cover of night to pry it open and help Ivy escape confinement. No one was helping her now and that left her alone to navigate the space on her unsteady legs.

Ivy missed Beth. She missed Enid. She wanted her friends back, her family. But she could never go backwards again.

Desperate fingers caught at the window and she struggled trying to force it up. But it only wriggled uselessly against the frame, refusing to budge an inch. "Shit," she hissed out in frustration, pulling harder to no success.

It wouldn't yield. Ivy leaned her forehead against the cool glass and tried to figure a new solution. If the window wasn't going to open, the door would also be locked. And while she was on just enough pain medication to numb her shoulder, she knew better than to try her odds climbing down from an upstairs window.