Chapter 449: You know what I am

Ivy stood directly in front of me, looking down at me with the same unreadable expression she always had.

Her small medical bag hung from one hand, packed with whatever supplies she had managed to keep together through the attack, ointment, cloth, disinfectant, medicine bottles, needles, and probably a few things I did not even recognize.

She looked exactly as calm as she had always.

Maybe calmer.

I looked up at her, wondering for the hundredth time how someone with Ivy’s personality had become a nurse.

Did nurses not need social skills? Or at least the ability to look concerned when someone was bleeding in front of them?

"Ivy," Rachel said as she stood up from beside me. "I’ll leave Ryan with you. Be careful. He’s pretty depressed right now."

I wanted to tell Rachel I was not depressed.

Then I remembered the last ten minutes of our conversation and decided not to embarrass myself further.

Rachel gave my shoulder a light squeeze before walking away.

Ivy did not say anything after she left.

She just kept looking at me.

It was not an angry look. Not exactly. Ivy’s face barely changed enough for me to call it anything. Still, having her stare at me in silence made me feel strangely uncomfortable.

Finally, she spoke.

"Take off your shirt."

"Right," I said. "Let’s go somewhere else first."

There was no way I was taking my shirt off in the middle of the Emerald Hotel lobby with injured people, survivors, and half the Boardwalk walking around.

Ivy gave a small nod.

We headed upstairs, moving slowly because I was in no condition to rush anywhere. The hotel had several rooms that were no longer being used, either because their windows were broken, their furniture had been moved downstairs for barricades, or people simply had not gotten around to claiming them again after the attack.

We found one with an intact door and a bed against the far wall.

The room smelled dusty, but it was quiet.

That was enough.

I shut the door behind us and carefully pulled off my shirt.

The movement sent pain through my ribs immediately.

"Fuck," I muttered under my breath.

Ivy waited without reacting while I slowly unwound the bandages Rachel had put around my torso. Rachel had done what she could with the supplies available in that abandoned building, but the wrapping had shifted during the walk, and dried blood had stained parts of it.

Once the bandages were off, my body looked worse than I had expected.

Purple bruises covered my ribs, stomach, side, and shoulder. There were dark marks around my chest where Gaspar’s attacks had hit me. Cuts and shallow wounds crossed my skin from getting thrown through concrete, rubble, and walls. My right side still hurt badly enough that I was fairly sure at least one rib had cracked.

The only reason I could stand and walk at all was Dullahan.

My body was healing faster than it should have been. I could feel it beneath the pain, slowly pulling things back together. But even Dullahan had limits. Gaspar had hit me too hard and too many times for me to simply wake up fine the next morning.

I sat carefully on the edge of the bed.

Ivy set her bag beside me, unzipped it, and began taking things out one by one.

A bottle of disinfectant.

Clean cloth.

Ointment.

A small container of medicine.

Tissues.

She worked quietly, wetting the cloth before cleaning the dried blood around one of the cuts on my side.

I flinched slightly when the disinfectant touched it.

Ivy did not comment.

She never did.

Her fingers moved with practiced care as she cleaned my injuries, then spread ointment across the bruising around my ribs. She pressed gently at first, checking where the pain was worst, before moving to the next injury.

I just let her work.

Back in Jackson Township, Ivy had been the one treating most of my injuries whenever I came back from something dangerous. I had gotten used to it. She never lectured me like Cindy did. She never worried over me like Rachel or Sydney. She never asked for a full explanation unless the injury mattered medically.

She just treated what needed treating.

Usually, that made things easier.

But this time, something felt different.

Maybe it was because Mei was gone.

Maybe it was because Ivy had been quieter than usual since the kidnapping. Not that she had ever been talkative, but lately she had seemed even more distant. More closed off.

I had wondered whether she resented me.

Ivy and Mei had known each other at Lexington Charter. They had both been quiet, isolated people even before the outbreak, and after everything happened, they had stayed close. I did not know every detail of their relationship, but I knew Mei mattered to her.

And I had failed to bring Mei home.

"I’m sorry," I said.

Ivy’s hand stopped briefly against my side.

She raised her eyes to mine.

"About Mei," I continued. "I know you were close to her. Since she was taken, you’ve been acting more distant."

I hesitated.

"And I know it’s my fault. I’m not even doing much to get her back right now. You have every right to be angry at me."

For a moment, Ivy only looked at me.

Her eyes were as unreadable as ever.

"I’m not angry," she replied calmly.

Then she returned to cleaning the bruises across my side.

"What about Mei?" I asked. "You’ve been distant since she was gone."

I looked down at her hands as she worked.

"If there’s something you want to say, you can tell me. If there’s anything bothering you, I mean."

I knew Ivy was the reserved type. More than reserved, really. There were days when I barely heard more than a few sentences from her.

But I wanted her to know I would listen.

At my words, Ivy looked up again.

She stared silently at me.

It should not have made me nervous after three months together, but it did.

I still had no idea what went on inside Ivy’s head most of the time.

"Mei will be fine," she said eventually.

Her voice was calm and certain.

"Even if she gets hurt, she can’t die."

I frowned.

"I don’t want her to get hurt in the first place."

"You cannot prevent that in your current state," Ivy replied.

Then she pressed against a bruised area near my side.

Pain shot through me.

I sucked in a breath and leaned forward slightly.

"Because you are weak," she added.

Weak.

The word landed harder than the pain.

I lowered my gaze.

"Yeah..." I nodded.

I could not deny it.

Ivy was the only person who had said it to me that directly. No comforting words. No attempt to soften it because I had already been injured enough. No pretending that surviving Gaspar meant I had somehow won.

Maybe that was why I liked moments like this with her.

Ivy was quiet, like me. She did not talk unless she had something worth saying. But unlike me, she did not hold everything inside until it became impossible to deal with. If she believed something needed to be said, she said it.

Even if it hurt.

"But I’ll get Mei out of there," I said.

My voice was low, but I meant it.

I might be weak right now. I might not know how I was supposed to beat Gaspar or survive whatever came next. But being weak was not a reason to abandon Mei.

"And then what?" Ivy asked.

I looked at her.

"What?"

"What will you do afterward?"

She did not stop treating the bruises along my side. She spread the ointment across a dark mark beneath my ribs, her fingers careful but firm.

"The Starakians know about you," she continued. "They know Dullahan exists inside you. They will come for you eventually. And they will come for everyone connected to you."

My chest tightened.

"T...They haven’t come yet," I said. "They knew I was in Jackson Township. They knew about me even then."

"That is luck," Ivy replied. "And naivety."

Her eyes rose to mine.

"You do not have much time. You will die soon enough."

"I...Ivy?"

For a moment, I thought I had heard her wrong.

She said it so calmly.

Not like a threat. Not like she wanted it to happen.

Like she was stating something unavoidable.

"The only thing you should be thinking about," she continued, "is whether you want to drag the others toward death with you, or face it alone."

Her fingers returned to my bruised side, applying another layer of ointment.

My heartbeat began to rise.

Anxiety crawled through me, cold and sharp. The room suddenly felt too quiet.

Drag the others toward death with you.

"Why?" I asked. "Why are you saying this?"

"Someone needed to tell you."

I caught her wrist before she could continue.

Ivy looked down at my hand around her arm, then back at me.

"If they really come for me..." My voice caught for a second. "If they take Dullahan, I die. Is that what you mean?"

She nodded once.

A shiver went through me.

I tried to keep my face calm, but the thought was too heavy. Dullahan had been inside me for seventeen years. It had become part of me before I even understood what it was. If the Starakians took it away, there would be nothing left for me to fight with.

I would die and even if I survive it, I would become completely powerless and useless.

"I can’t do anything to stop them, can I?" I asked.

"You can run," Ivy said.

For half a second, I almost felt relieved.

Then she continued.

"But they will catch you eventually. If you are with the others when they do, they will catch them too."

Her gaze did not change.

"And you will all die."

I stared into her eyes.

There was no panic in them.

No guilt.

No emotion at all.

"You don’t include yourself when you say ’us,’ do you?" I asked.

"I won’t die," Ivy replied.

Then she calmly returned to treating my injuries.

I watched her for a long moment.

The way she moved. The way she spoke. The certainty in her voice whenever she mentioned things she should not have been able to know.

I had wondered about Ivy for a long time.

Who she really was.

Why she seemed different from everyone else. Why some things never surprised her as much as they should have. Why she could talk about the Starakians, Dullahan, and death as if she had already thought through every possible ending.

"Will you tell me one day who you really are?" I asked.

She did not answer.

"What do you actually want, Ivy?"

Nothing.

She continued wiping away dried blood from a cut near my side.

The silence made something inside me snap.

Maybe it was because Gaspar had beaten me until I could barely stand.

Maybe it was because I had spent the entire day thinking about Mei, Elena, the people who died in the Boardwalk, and all the things I could not protect.

Maybe I was just tired of everyone knowing more than me while I kept getting dragged into disasters I did not understand.

I tightened my grip around Ivy’s wrist.

"Just tell me something."

Ivy finally looked up.

For a second, neither of us said anything.

Then she set the tissue down.

Before I could understand what she intended to do, Ivy pushed me backward onto the bed.

"Ivy—"

She moved over me, straddling my waist before I could sit back up.

My body went stiff.

I looked up at her.

Her dark eyes were fixed on mine, as unreadable as ever. Then, without warning, she leaned down and kissed me.

My eyes widened.

My hands rose to her hips automatically, more from surprise than anything else. I should have pushed her away immediately. I should have demanded to know what she thought she was doing.

But the kiss was awkward.

Clumsy.

Nothing like the confidence she had shown when she spoke about death and the Starakians.

The warmth of her body pressed against mine. Her lips moved uncertainly against mine, and despite everything going through my head, I felt my own reaction betray me.

I kissed her back.

One of my arms wrapped around her back, pulling her closer for a brief moment.

Then a small part of my mind finally forced its way through the confusion.

This was not right.

Not like this.

I pulled back sharply.

Before Ivy could react, I shifted our positions, carefully moving her beneath me. I kept my weight off her as much as I could, my injured ribs protesting from the movement.

My face felt hot.

I looked down at her.

Her lips were slightly glistening. Her hair had fallen around her face. Yet her expression was still almost completely unreadable, as though she had not just done something that made my heart feel like it was trying to tear through my chest.

"I...I don’t understand you," I said, breathing harder than I should have been.

"I don’t understand you either," Ivy replied.

"W-What?"

"You know what I am," she said.

Her eyes stayed on mine.

"Yet you have done nothing against me. You have not demanded answers. You have not forced me to explain myself. You have not sent me away."

"Because you’re one of us," I said.

The words came out immediately.

"You’re part of our group."

"No."

Ivy’s reply was short.

Cold.

Something inside me tightened.

I clenched my fists and stared at her.

"I refuse to believe that."

I pulled away from her.

I reached for my shirt, ignoring the pain that tore through my body as I dragged it back on. Ivy stayed on the bed behind me, silent again.

I did not look back.

I opened the door and walked out of the room.