Like the Darkness, but not the Darkness (A Gone series fan fiction)

Pulling (Chapter Twenty Four)

Hunter woke up, and he was almost immediately knocked out again- with Ivy hugging the life out of him and sobbing over his shoulder.

She was careful none of her bare skin brushed his.

"Hunter, I'm so sorry I didn't check earlier- I swear I'm going to kill Caine-" She started, falling silent as she rushed to control her emotions. She was the sibling that didn't cry- that stayed strong for everyone. Hunter seemed to understand, because he kept patting her shoulder with a pitiful look.

It just made more of Ivy's compressed emotions come 

"Hey, Ivy, Hunter." He said slowly, watching mostly Ivy as she carefully set Hunter back- telling him to just rest for a moment.

"Sam." Ivy answered coldly, not having a reason to be angry but still being angry.

"Listen Ivy, we're all thankful for you saving us. But know, Caine is still out there. And Drake. We need to group together and go back to Perdido beach. We need to be ready for whenever they come back..." Sam said with much confidence, trailing off when he realized Ivy had zoned out a couple sentences in.

"First of all, Drake? Why is Drake an issue? And second, there's no way I'm putting my family in any more danger-"

"Ivy! Ivy!" A voice screeched, and Ivy could only groan.

Bounding over came Alice, who skidded to a stop a couple feet before Ivy- careful not to throw herself at her sister. She knew that she couldn't do that anymore. She wasn't allowed to touch her sister.

"What are you doing here Alice?" Ivy hissed, stumbling to her feet.

"Me and Kimmy-"

"Kimmy and I." Kim corrected as she appeared out of no where, struggling to push a stroller over uneven ground.

"Whatever. We were going for a walk, and we saw the guy who'd been at the house earlier- and he was dragging a Chinese girl. And then he saw us, and he ran away without the girl-"

"Taylor, she's talking about Taylor. We need to go get her." A girl jutted in, someone Ivy didn't know- but Hunter obviously did by how he responded to her, assuring they would.

"But wait, who's this-"

"We left her in a safe place. And then were just walking back to the house- hoping to find you and saw this commotion and came to investigate." Kim finished, finally bringing the stroller to a stop and apologizing to Sam once she realized she'd interrupted him.

Sam didn't repeat his question, his eyes only staring with a more interested look at Ivy.

"Ivy, we need to go into town with them. I want to go with Dekka and Sam-" Hunter started weakly from the ground.

"No!" Ivy shouted, her eyes wide and panicked. "We are not going into a bloodshed! I'm sorry for this, but none of us are helping if there's a chance we'll die!"

"I'm going. I'm making my own decision." Hunter said firmly, not as much as looking at Ivy as she tried to reason with him- the rest of the group looking on with sympathetic looks.

"I'm going too."

The words broke Ivy's heart, her eyes filled exasperation as she turned to look at her younger sister.

"Kimmy.." She said softly, watching as she started to give her reasons.

"Hunter told me about Mother Mary- and I feel like I need to go help her. During this time I refuse to stay in the house while I could be helping keep the children calm. They don't deserve this, none of us deserve this. But we need to help each other anyways.." She said, trying to sound stern but her voice breaking halfway through into a plead.

"I wanna go too!" Alice cried, obviously just agreeing because everyone else was saying they wanted to go.

Ivy was silent, everyone staring at her as she tried to make her face impassive- trying to hide her thoughts.

Finally she spoke, her words a broken whisper.

"Fine."

Instantly people started talking, but Ivy spoke again, breaking through it.

"Kimmy is going to the safe place with the other children and Mother Mary, as well as Deon and Alice. Hunter will be kept safe in a secluded place. Only I and I alone out of the Blackwell's will be on the front line-" Ivy started, making it firm and shooting down Hunter as he started arguing.

"Ok then, let's start moving." Sam said, clapping his hands together.

Very slowly the attention drained from Ivy and focused on Sam- the whole group starting to move back in the direction of town.

The whole time back Ivy was silent, demanding all of the Blackwell's walk together and be the caboose of the group. The whole reason she wanted them back there was to talk privately- but none of her siblings besides Alice would talk to her.

No one asked to go to her house, and she was glad that no one did- because she would've shot them down.

So they just walked, Sam giving an inspirational speech that Ivy thought it was nothing but lies- with Lana going around to heal all of the past trapped kids. None of them were in good shape, and Ivy had watched from behind as Lana healed the last kid before Hunter.

For a moment the hands, they were scrawny, scarred and just flat ugly and damaged. For a moment they were comparable to Ivy's hands- but then with a couple minutes of work Lana made them perfect and new again. 

Ivy couldn't help but look down at her own hands, a sad look crossing her face. She could never be healed because she couldn't be touched.

She got Hunter last, and Lana's eyes were on Ivy the whole time- wide and fearful. Always watching and refusing to be within ten feet of her. After seeing what she did, everyone had kept their distance. Hunter and Kim had been told when she hadn't been paying attention- and she noticed even they were drifting away from her as they moved on.

So that's it. Ivy thought bitterly. I'm nothing but an antihero that isn't appreciated at all.

Ivy glared into Lana's eyes, deciding that in that moment the Healer would be the one she could blame for the shame. She felt as if she needed to scream, "It was an accident! And I saved your life!" right into her pale face. Her eyes weren't black anymore, but were noticeably darker- and had a permanent grim and slightly dead look to them.

It really was disturbing, and so far two people had these eyes.

Ivy wondered how many other people she'd infect. How many other people she'd curse.

It unsettled her more how with touching Diana, that weird feeling- like there was somehow another presence around her that she couldn't see- had doubled. Like there were now two lingering ghosts- somehow inside her and all around her at once.

She could almost reach out and run her hand through their cold and misty forms...

Up ahead, Lana's head snapped backwards- her eyes narrowing at Ivy as the dark girl's eyes closed, her hands flexing at her sides.

There was a tug, and suddenly Lana was being lured in more than one direction.

The Darkness, it'd had her- but now something else was pulling.