my tears ricochet

Part 113

Glenn tried to find her. Ivy knew he was on her trail as she laid falsehoods into the land. She raced along the soft patches of dirt and let her feet sink heavy before skirting towards the rocks jutting up, skipping across until she doubled back and started again, moving in another direction. This was an old skill she was reviving for another round, tricking whoever was in pursuit. Houses lined her left shoulder and she veered off towards the paved road before darting away for gravel, keeping her steps wide and irregular, and then ducking back into wild patch of forest blooming up just to drag her feet like a mimic of a walker.

Twice Glenn got close. She ducked behind slabs of stone and hid from sight until he moved past, frantic and desperate. Ivy hadn't lied. She promised to go back to the other side of the border with them because Glenn wasn't going to give her a choice otherwise.

And, realistically, Ivy couldn't drive. It was faster to make the journey as a compliant passenger.

"You should go home," Lori whispered in her ear. "Go back where you're supposed to be."

"Please be quiet," Ivy whispered back to the ghost living inside her head. Moss clung to the rough bark of the tree she leaned against. She broke her steady routine of tricking Glenn in favour of smashing a vending machine for bottled water at a massage and chiropractor office. Her hand shook as she unscrewed the cap and swallowed a mouthful of warm water, struggling to keep herself together.

It was hard clinging to her old ways. Ivy needed to be what she had been— that lone person in the woods tricking the entire world. But she was softer now. Blood in the water made her want to crumble. "It'll be safer back with the others," Lori continued and she heard the soft agreement of Oscar. "They don't want you out here."

Ivy told herself that she wasn't afraid of the walkers. She wasn't afraid of the Saviours.

She wasn't going to be afraid of Simon when the time came to meet him face to face.

The Hilltop sat upright on a hill like a jagged crown and Ivy sulked in the distance, watching and waiting, patiently climbing up to some forgotten hunting stand to keep above. If she broke the tree line, someone would see her. Someone would come and let her back in, holding that door open so she could return.

But Ivy didn't want to return. She didn't want that life anymore.

"What exactly are we cooking up?" Negan's voice came, louder from her memories, fever bright and painful. She nearly dropped the mason jar of gasoline. Ivy carefully set it down beside her and tipped her head back, feeling the sky bleed through the branches of the tree she was in.

"How'd you do this?" Ivy asked him, eyes shutting. Everything inside her chest hurt. Loneliness was another hurt, throbbing and wounded, bleeding from a slash straight across the heart lines.

"Go back," Lori's voice sounded again.

This was insanity, Ivy realized. All her ghosts were rising up from the ground and each pulled at her arms like a tug of war. She was tired and hungry. Exhaustion made her pliant to the tricks of the mind.

"If she looks like a serial killer and walks like one... bet she is a serial killer," Negan added unhelpfully. It felt like the man was the devil on her shoulder. "Sure would've liked to see this kind of behaviour on my side."

"I'm going to be good for something," Ivy decided roughly. Beth was singing in the background of her own mind. "Maybe if I kept going in the first place, this never would've happened. I could have gone back sooner. I could have shot Simon before actual good people died. But I didn't, so this is on me."

Familiar ground, she decided. What was weariness and hunger if not recent memories? Ivy was used to moving her feet even when the sky tried to smother her down. And she was angry again. Anger was fuel for a rage, fuel for something to be done. And there was only one person left in the world to scream at. To fight against.