my tears ricochet

Chapter 102

"You take those meds yet?" Daryl asked as he came out of his bedroom with a jacket slung over his shoulder.

"Yeah. You left the lid unscrewed."

He looked at Ivy from where she was sitting cross-legged on the couch with a relatively honest expression on her face that was enough to let the subject drop. "You good to go? Michonne's gonna talk with you for a bit. And I wanna swing by Bob's and get more of that bruise salve."

Daryl was the one trying to treat the marks on her arms and face which were only just starting to fade properly and he had a particular grievance against the ones marking her throat. Ivy refused to answer the question about who did that particular violence but tolerated the salve with minimal complaint. "Why can't I talk to Rick about Simon?"

"You've got two options," Daryl warned her. "Michonne or Rosita. Take your pick."

Temporary confinement was progressing fairly well. Two days at the clinic had been spent with Ivy either sleeping or pretending to be asleep to avoid conversation with the very small cycle of people he personally permitted into the room, which rotated evenly between Maggie, Rosita, and Glenn, and he stoically refused anyone from outside their apartment interfering with their space for another two days that they were home for. But they needed to start making small steps and that meant leaving for a bit, testing how she reacted to it.

"Whatever," she said, making a face of annoyance at him. And he tolerated it. Her attempts at provoking a fight to make him storm off failed every time and each try was getting more halfhearted at best. "I don't care."

"No. I'm offering you a choice. Tell me what you want."

Ivy got up from the couch and moved to the door, cautiously avoiding the range of his reach. "I don't care," she repeated herself. "It doesn't matter who you drag me to see. You can do whatever you want."

He frowned but let the easy bait for an argument drop. Her mood was spiked with frustration and it cost nothing to endure it. "Where are you shoes?"

She blinked, confused. And then she turned around to look for them, finding an empty space beside his old work boots. "I thought they were here?"

"Did you leave them in your room?"

"Maybe?"

Daryl sighed. "Hold on. I'll go and look for 'em."

He knew she had left the clinic in a pair of running shoes that replaced the ones he found her in. And the apartment was only so big. If she had kicked them off, it would have been at the door or in her bedroom where they were liable to be mixed in with the mess.

The bedroom had faint signs of rummaging for stashed weaponry he had already cleared out. Glenn was willing to sit up with Ivy the first day she had been asleep from the drugs so Daryl could run through a quick list of chores that ranged from snagging clean clothes and dismantling her bedroom for the endless stash of knives and other devices she could use to her advantage.

He heard the door slam open. Daryl moved on instinct, shoes forgotten, rushing from the bedroom door to the front, catching a bare glimpse of his daughter as she sprinted down the stairwell. The surprise of it caught him off guard and made him slower to react, stumbling in his pursuit.

Ivy had been deliberately testing the window and the slip of wood keeping it shut or pestering him herself and the slyness of this attempt came left field.

The red door to the street banged open and she sprinted faster almost, spurred on by the advantage of a head start and the illusion of freedom. They were going in the opposite direction of the gun supply, Daryl realized, which meant she had given up on obtaining a weapon and was simply trying to get loose.