[𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩．．．]

Poison ivy. Toxicodendron Radicans. A noxious bane that, when touched, leads to: headaches, fever, infection.

When ingested? Well, in most cases...death.

These were the after effects of coming into contact with the deadly plant.

And so, with a namesake like that, what were her parents really thinking? Were they really so shocked she turned out the way she did?

Was it really a surprise that Ivanna 'Ivy' Loreley had always been weird? To her, it was predestined. As written in the stars as a Greek tragedy.

Like the folium she was kinned with, she was purely toxic.

But it hadn't always been that way. Small towns garnered small thinking, and even before she lived up to her title, she'd been targeted and ostracized by peers and parents and teachers alike.

Where other kids liked Barbie cartoons and socializing in the sandbox, Ivy was the opposite. Not that she tried to be, she just couldn't be like all the others. She'd tried to fit in. Tried to be normal, because she didn't want to be different. But when it failed time and time again and nothing set for the straight and narrow stuck for her, she found she also wouldn't lie about who she was. So she wore her stark black clothes, she embraced her pallid skin and her ashy, limp blond hair, tried to pretend the mature scowl always warping that blank little baby face instead of a smile was wanted.

They held her at arm's length, the town, when she stopped trying to be mundane like all the other kids; and outside, amongst nature, is where she turned for companionship in their stead. Because nature didn't call her nasty names like Tommy Curtis did, that gap toothed little snot nosed shit extra keen to make her aware she was hated.

She'd never had the insult of hag or freak or witch or ghoul hurled at her by any passing animal or plant. That kind of cruelty, she'd known even then, was reserved to humanity alone.

It was her misfortune, it seemed–beyond the disappointment of her stoic, clean cut parents and the disdain of all others she met in her little life–that bizarre happenings were her forte. Her calling.

And though she'd endured injustice and hate for being a little peculiar, the kicker to push her down the river of no return had arrived later. When she was seven.

It was a harmless request, an innocent proposal of a gift. For her birthday, after bouts of relentless whining, her parents had begrudgingly gifted her her very own pet. She'd heard Julie Kransky bragging in school about her new frou–frou pomeranian puppy bound for a life as a handbag accessory. She'd seen Jarvis Filcher, the handsome boy in the year above hiding his poverty behind a pretty face, walking his doberman after school with his walkman blaring Metallica. He lived in the dingy little bungalow across the street with a church mouse mother and a brow beaten, bible thumping father prone to bouts of aggression his son tried to hide under his clothes.

The last straw was Tommy. Her enemy, bullying her down, telling her she'd have nothing. That she'd always be denied any instance of having something normal. It had made her crave to prove him wrong and eventually, when the crying became too much and her tears seemed to be like an irritant in the air causing their hate, her parents had caved... and they hadn't bothered to understand her pleas had come from a yearning to feel some kind of love.

A rabbit was her first and last pet. One that she named Hopper–generic, but by Christ, she'd loved that thing to death.

...Literally.

Because that had been when the first small sparks of her curse had appeared.

She'd always been different and sure, maybe she should've figured something like this was a given in her strangeness.

It had all been so sudden. One moment, Hop had been darting around their tiny bungalow's living room with some version of rabbit zoomies. The next, when her mother had heard Ivy start to wail something dreadful and fierce and had heeded that one small shred of maternal love she'd left to rush and check on her daughter, poor little Hopper had been found laying on his side, stone cold dead and already unnaturally stiff...right in front of a red cheeked, teary eyed Ivy who could just about babble that she'd only wanted to stroke him.

Clinical and apathetic about it, as if even showing an ounce of recognition that her daughter had somehow killed their rabbit but left no marks to show for it, her mother had simply stuffed the little white critter into a shoebox, spending the remainder of the day shoveling a shallow grave and dumping him in. Burying the manifestation of evil her child had suddenly shown. If it was closer to hell, perhaps the flames could burn away or claim the sin.

By the time her father came home from his grueling 9-5 at the town's bank and found them both silent, picking at their dinner of microwave casserole, her mother had moved on. Greeting him with smiles and kisses and a crappy little story that poor Hopper had choked to death on some lettuce, but Ivy hadn't missed that look in her mothers eyes when she'd tucked her into bed that night with cautious hands. She'd been afraid, as if she was staring into the eyes of a monster instead of her macabre little girl.

Sadly, that had been all too true.

The older she got, the more frequent episodes occurred. Ivy had an affinity, laughable really given what happened when she did, to touch. She'd think a plant was beautiful, or an animal that had approached her was adorable–because they seemed just as drawn to her as she was to them...and on autopilot her hand would be reaching out to skim fingers along feathers and fur and fauna.

Then, well, reality would set in when that thing she coveted fell to ruin before her. The littlest graze from her and she'd leach the life from the thing she revered, leaving nothing but a mangled, desecrated husk of body or stem behind.

It was sad. Heart wrenching that she, with an affinity to love so great, lay waste to anything she dare tried.

This phantom, grim power she'd now begun to wield reached boiling point when she was eighteen. So close to graduating. Eleven long years it had been, before everything went to shit.

There had been a rule set. One she was not to break. One she must always abide by.

She was to wear layers upon layers, the only inch of her skin on show that of her face, and she'd happily obliged. If being wrapped in sweltering clothes made her uncomfortable, but meant she couldn't hurt anything anymore, wasn't it what she deserved? Wasn't it what was best?

It got her even more relentlessly targeted by feeble minded people, with the newer taunts of ghost girl and Wednesday echoing the halls–severely unoriginal and not actually hurtful, but that had been alright to her. Necessary.

They could torment and tease and abuse, but they didn't know her strange looks and perpetual introverted nature and behavior was her doing them a service. She was saving them by keeping her guard up. If they even deserved it.

The one time she'd dropped this impenetrable wall of callous disdain, was all for a man. And weren't they any woman's undoing?

The first one to steal her heart, the one who'd caused it the most grief. Tommy Curtis, star jock and captain of the football team, had sought her out on one of her infamous trails through the woods.

He'd cornered her and she was sure, so sure, she was inbound for some kind of nasty hazing or torment. But then, leaving her utterly mind boggled and aghast, he had blushed scarlet, tousled his healthy head of blond waves and admitted rather sheepishly he was sorry.

She'd said nothing.That incited the spiel he went on.

The classical story all mothers tell their daughters when a boy makes them cry in the playground. He was only so mean to her because he'd apparently liked her since they were in preschool.

And she'd laughed. It was outrageous.

But he'd given her, when she calmed, no time to think. To her annoyance, he had been adorable as he rambled and begged for her forgiveness, had sworn up and down he wasn't ashamed anymore and he didn't care what anyone else thought of him. He'd said it was killing him to be mean to her to preserve his reputation, only to watch her longingly from the sidelines while she remained oblivious as to how he really felt.

He'd all but demanded she let him prove it–and maybe she was crazy, but her pure want for a scrap of kindness blinded her to any possible trickery. She'd said yes.

In front of the whole town he showed her off: The cliquey girls from school who'd scoffed to hide their jealousy, the other sporty douchebags aghast to see him parade her around on his arm like she was something to truly be proud of. The cranky bookstore owner, Mr Tellman, with a particular vendetta against her after his cat went missing and she was blamed for using it in a satanic ritual that hadn't even happened. Hell, even in front of his disgruntled parents who gave him shit for it later on.

Tommy ignored them all.

He didn't care and had taken her to the movies to see Near Dark. A vampire flick, one of her favorites that the theatre was reshowing. He'd endured the sneers and the looks, felt what it was like to be her, and he'd taken it all with a smile of reassurance, was undisturbed when she laughed at the gore instead of gasping in fear like everyone else. With no fight or question, just like that, he'd accepted her. He'd proved himself.

Ivy had been enamored with him immediately. A shallow sort of infatuation with someone who'd caused her the most grief, now set on making her experience all the love he had to give. Flowers, chocolates, clothes sourced from god knows where so she could be her most authentic self. You name it.

As the weeks went on, he didn't stop. Wasn't deterred when friends of nearly a decade wrinkled their nose at the sight of him and the object of his affection. He hadn't cared and by the end of autumn, the whole town knew they were an item. Knew there was nothing they could do about it. It was common knowledge that the weird Loreley child and the golden boy set for a life of ease were an item.

So much so, that when they ended up at the vast lake the town was known for one night after having a cute fifties inspired date at the one dismal diner Oak Falls had, Ivy made a massive mistake that set the discourse of her life into motion.

He'd been respectful about intimacy, something she hadn't anticipated. She'd seen it all the time in school: the greed and pressure boys put on their partners to start things they weren't ready for so they could brag about her stolen innocence to their friends, while the girls hid the pain away behind smiles, lying they'd wanted it to fit in.

He didn't do any of that. Hadn't even mentioned it.

So, in the back of his Ford, sharing nervous glances, she'd completely forgotten her ailment and had decided she was ready to let him know what she wanted.

Her condition had flown entirely from her mind.

That was when she discovered her power remained not only in her hands, but the entirety of her. It had been her first and last kiss. The kiss of death that left him a corpse within a minute.

She'd checked valiantly for a pulse as she cried and cried, cursed her idiocy, her fickle wants and her forgetful brain, her selfish desire that had clouded her judgement, but it was too late.

She'd killed him.

Spending the whole night, cradling his lifeless body, staring into those once vivacious crystalline blue eyes, begging the world for it to be a nightmare. For them to swap places. It did nothing.

When morning broke through the dusky sky, she had panicked. Point blank. It destroyed her more than anything, to leave him there all alone in the burgeoning winter chill, but she hadn't the slightest inkling what to do. She wasn't a coldblooded murderer. A calculated killer. She was a teenage girl who'd only wanted what she apparently couldn't have.

It was truly heartbreaking, what happened after. A witch hunt.

It didn't take long at all for him to be found. The lake was a popular spot and with his absence noted at school and disdainful, suspicious glares cast at her empty seat all day, his friends formed a search group and found him easily enough. Skin tinged blue, eyes glassy and a lifeless gray, body shriveled with unnatural decay. He'd looked more like a year's dead corpse than one of only a day.

And with their close bond, their scintillating new romance he'd insisted be shown before everyone in a show of acceptance, a bloodthirsty gaggle painted Ivy Loreley the villain, the culprit, gunning for her head on a spike as retribution.

Even without concrete evidence, prejudice had a part to play in their decision that she was to blame–that the finger was immediately pointed at her without so much as talk of an investigation. Police were happy enough to let the pitchfork mob take care of the pariah.

Ivy had been unaware, shut away in her room to cry her eyes raw and red in privacy when her parents had suddenly barged in, duffel bags in hand. Her mother had frantically started shoving the pitiful contents of her wardrobe into them along with essentials while her father cried his apologies.

"The Curtis boy, Ivy..."

He didn't outright accuse her. There was no need to. He'd already known.

"They're coming for you." He'd whispered with a throat crack of pure grief and remorse she'd never heard from him...and then he'd hugged her tight, careful not to touch her skin, while her mother took her things to the car. She didn't look at or speak to Ivy once.

"You have to go."

Ivy had begged her father not to insist she be sent away, that she hadn't done it on purpose. She hadn't meant it. She hadn't asked for this.

But he'd shaken his head and earnestly told her the truth. "I love you, Ivy. For all these years you've eluded me. Who you are, what you can do. But you're still my daughter. My kid. My little Vivi."

He'd laughed only so he didn't break down, hovering his hands over her wet cheeks. Even then, when it mattered most, he couldn't touch her. Just sternly reassured, "This is not your fault, you understand? You were just being a teenage girl. You just wanted what everyone else got to have, so you don't carry this with you. You don't shun love for yourself or harbor this guilt for the rest of your life. You leave this place that never showed you any kindness, and you live. You hear me?"

"How?" She'd croaked. Because she didn't know how. All she knew was hatred and fear. Even from her mother. Even from him.

He ushered her to shrug on her coat and shoes and withheld an answer, and when she'd done that he presented a thick envelope with a sad smile. So thick it wouldn't close. "With this."

Realization hit her like a ton of bricks. "I–I can't take that, dad. Your retirement–"

"It doesn't matter. Money comes and goes easily in this town. This is yours, Ivy. We haven't been the best parents, I know." He had sighed out the truth, so thick and clogged with barely suppressed tears, "But we were saving it for you. Set it aside for when you were older. College or a gap year or whatever you wanted it for." He'd shrugged a broad shoulder, scooped her gloved hand up in his and had pressed it unyieldingly into her palm, steel gray eyes firm. "You take it. You leave us and this place behind and you never look back, like you should've as soon as you turned eighteen."

"Dad–" She'd sobbed. She hadn't been able to contain it. Only then was she discovering he hadn't hated her, that he'd thought of her future. He'd loved her all this time...and she had to leave him.

He'd sighed again, crowding her out her door and onto the landing after uttering for her to check she had all she wanted. "We can't wait. I'm so sorry, baby. You have to leave."

Lumbered with the weight of what was happening, tears stayed by the shock of goodbye, they'd made it downstairs, a silhouette catching her eye as he'd rushed to open the door and check the coast was clear.

Her mother stayed at the kitchen table, face pressed into her hands clasped in motions of prayer, muttering to the lord, rosary trembling between skeletal fingers.

Before she had moved to leave it all behind, Ivy was sure she'd seen her shoulders shaking, was sure some tears splashed onto the chipped hickory wooden table the home of many resentful breakfasts, lunches and dinners between them.

But then she could have just been kidding herself. Looking back, her mother was probably secretly glad to see her go.

Her father had rushed her, shoulders burdened and hunched downward with the gravity and regret of what was happening, took her to the car, wary all the while that she'd be caught before she could go.

"I wish you all the luck in the world, kid and I'm...I'm sorry. I could've done so much better."

That was the last thing he said.

With tears blinding her and the heftiness of all of their combined earnings heavy in her coat pocket, that was the end for Ivy. She left, only looking back once to see him break entirely and collapse to his knees...and then he was out of sight and she crossed the town sign out into a world unknown. Life as she'd known it, from that point, was finished. Over.

In the present of October, 1989–two years after that incident, she found herself as a nomad bouncing from place to place, barely able to scrape by. A pickpocket, a no good thief, a lowlife surviving on the last scraps of money her parents had. Maybe, that's how it was always meant to play out.

She didn't try to settle, not anymore. Because over these slow years she'd discovered it made her complacent. It made her forget her power and ultimately, someone would worm their way through the cracks and the shaky foundation of the wall around her heart. A possible friend, a stranger showing her kindness. She tried to prevent it, but her soul craved a companion. It craved intimacy and love and affection and all the things a twenty year old girl desired from the world. But any who tried paid the ultimate price for it. A misplaced hand. A kiss on the cheek by a rambunctious guy mistaking her for an easy fuck. Boom. They were dead and another piece of her heart died with them. Even the nasty ones that some would argue deserved it.

After countless mishaps that could have been avoided if only she'd remained closed off to the world and its rare generosity, Ivy resigned herself to do just that. To be a wanderer. To spend her life on the road...and yet she was so tired. So sick of it. So run down.

She shivered as a brusk wind rolled up the side of the building she was perched on, flooding over the roof space she called home for the night. She had saved her money well by having to freeze her ass off doing shit like this. They'd given her a lot, her parents. But she had to make it last or she'd be just another statistic cast aside and forgotten and her corpse spit upon as people strolled past her on the sidewalk. So, roughing it on city streets–while dangerous–was the only option.

Sure, she could've bunked it out in her car. Her dads old Chevy Impala, still kicking. But that was surface level and predictable. Way more dangerous. Anyone could jack the door or window open and someone would only end up dead in that scenario.

Luckily, this apartment building had a fire escape right to the roof. It was a building stretching high up into the night like a hand towards the heavens and the clouds she now mingled with. She had to trek it, but now she was hidden from view, sprawled dangerously on the building's edge, eyeing the sparkling city of Santa Barbara before her as she flicked her pocket knife up and down. Up and down. A rhythm to disrupt the peace that never quite felt natural.

Fuck, life was tedious. The same wherever she was. A lot of lessons had been learned the hard way, but this one always stung: That she'd be the odd one out. Always.

After she was basically chased out of the sticks of her lovely home state Texas, it had been onto New Orleans for hopes of spiritual awakening or meaning or something.

Nope.

Next, she'd tried for some normality, some mediocrity in Oklahoma and Denver.

Hadn't worked.

She'd then attempted New Mexico and Phoenix for the familiar heat. The vast desserts and nature just made her home sick.

There had been a search for a glimmer of feeling, for the zest of life in the casino's of Vegas and the bright lights and dreams of LA and...nothing.

So here she was. Making a start on the coast on the off chance she fancied a life cruising the waves and soaking up the beachy wind and sun.

God, what did it even matter the weather? The town or city? Ivy felt like she'd seen all America had to offer and then some. She was so fucking bored.

Lately, in that apathy, she had too much time to think. To reminisce. But it wasn't like there was anything else to do. She could get drunk, or do drugs, but what was the use? They hardly had any effect on her, anyway. Another downside of her curse. Anything that could've brought relief, that could've made an attempt at shortening her life was rejected by her body. Like it wouldn't accept the damaging things she put into it, for where her 'gift' leeched life from others, with her it fought to preserve it. A sick joke.

...Maybe that was for the best. Her immunity to narcotics. As a woman alone, she had to be careful. She couldn't afford to be sloppy again or have herself be taken advantage of. These were dangerous times now, after all.

To make the heartache and loneliness bearable, Ivy would do what she was now. Contemplate her invisible existence and ponder it wholly. It was easier when she got nostalgic and sad about where she was in life, like this, to think of herself as a seed. One blowing in the wind, trying to find its place to belong. Hopeful that one day, as she grew up, she could find a place to settle down. To claim and call home.

"Fuking juvenile." She scoffed under her breath, trying to shake herself out of the mushy mindset she'd put herself in.

Juvenile. Hm. It was, she supposed. To live in fantasies in her head. But she had to survive somehow. Cinderella dreamed of a happier life and, fuck, she got it didn't she? Who was to say Ivy wouldn't?

She smiled to herself and shook her head, flicking the blade again. Cinderella was light and beauty and grace all wrapped up in a shimmery bow with prince charming running to her aid. She didn't have the power to suck the soul from someone. That's probably why.

"Ow! Son of a–" She hissed suddenly, her blade clattering over the edge of the apartment block, soaring to smash onto the hood of a car below before stagnantly laying on the pavement. Great.

"Motherfucker." She growled, leaning to assess any damage, sucking angrily at the nicked wound leaking blood on the pad of her thumb.

The alarm hadn't gone off, so that was good. What wasn't were the two figures she saw stumbling down the street in her direction. They were men. Drunk. They wouldn't look up, but what they did do as they laughed and pushed at each other was spot her blade glinting in the artificial neon lights of the stores around them, one of them picking it up.

Her hackles pricked as he touched it, howling like a goddamn werewolf as he slashed at his friend.

She rolled her eyes. Men. Fucking children.

"Don't do that, man." The other hiccuped nervously, letting out a string of shaky laughter, just dodging the blade. He scorned, "What if someone thinks you're the Night Stalker or something?"

Unnamused, his smaller friend huffed and stopped imitating a swashbuckling pirate. "That's happening in California, dipshit."

"We're in Cali, you stupid motherfucker." The slightly more sober man retorted, shoving his hands in his kaki short pockets. She crinkled her nose at his choice in outfit, sure her dad had a pair just like that. "Christ, how much crank did you take?"

The Sweeney Todd wannabe manhandling her property laughed at the insult Lurch had thrown at him.

It took all her might to resist dropping down onto him out of the sky like Batman, doling out a punishment for daring to touch her things.

She barely reined her thinly lidded aggression in, and the sensible one scuffed a sneaker on the pavement, watching his psychotic buddy eye the blade with a little too much enthusiasm. Quieter, he said, "It's not to say it couldn't happen here, you know?"

"Not here." The psycho sounded sure and Ivy sighed, relaxing her tensed muscles as he didn't put her prized possession and her only protection in his pocket. Instead, he threw it back down and put an arm around his friend. Something on his face glinted as he looked up at the taller man. A lip piercing matching the one shoved unprofessionally through his brow. "Where we're going, it's a full time occupation for some. Worse than that lame ass Son Of Sam wannabe terrorizing LA and San Fran."

That had her quirking a brow. What was worse than a deranged killer who got his kicks killing children, old women and anyone in between?

"What?" The lumbering, more nervously dispositioned one quivered. "What are you talking about?

"Santa Carla!" His friend exclaimed, bouncing around him. More things flashed in the light. A punk, then. He wore spikes and leather, not unlike her. "My hometown, man! Couple of hours up the coast–but dude, hear me out. It's known as The Murder Capital Of The World. Ain't that kickass?! And it produced yours truly, so that's something to give it credit for!"

A snort of unsuppressable derision nearly tore its way up her throat. No fucking way was a place called that. How'd it get any traction, for a start? And if they feared the Night Stalker, why the hell were they going to a place with murder in the goddamn title?

"Vic," Lean mean and grumpy whined, "That's the last time I let you pick our vacation destination."

"You'll thank me."

They started off again, a little steadier now, the talk of danger having sobered them up.

Ivy took the chance and hauled herself to her feet along with her two heavy but trusty rucksacks, just catching the punk now dubbed as 'Vic' practically sing, "It's a haven for runaways and all kinds of weird ass folk. We're gonna fit right on in! Plus, it'll be a hoot seeing my old man again."

She scaled down the fire escape again, stepping out of the narrow alley and into the light of the quiet neighborhood. Bending, her tatted hand scooped up her pocket knife, flicked it shut and shoving it in her pocket, she stared contemplatively after them as they disappeared into the night.

Santa Carla, huh?

A car horn honked and interrupted her thinking.

She cut an asinine glare around her and like an animal, spooked by the littlest noise, she started off toward where she'd hidden her car, a wanderer once more. Now a wanderer with a destination in mind.

One that sounded dangerous, possibly suicidal of her to consider, but wasn't that the fun? What was this dull new life without a little risk?

Decided and drawn like so many were, she vowed to give the supposed 'sanctuary for murderers' a shot. It sounded like she'd fit right on in, just like Vic said.

What Ivy didn't know was that despite its depravity, despite her hidden hesitation, she would learn it would be the best decision she'd made in a long while. That it would be a place she could finally flourish and be what she was meant to be. She would cherish that it would be the place she'd be nurtured, not crushed or destroyed or shunned.

Because something as toxic as Ivy Loreley could only thrive in The Murder Capital Of The World.