Chapter 76 Bond Over Ice Cream
BOND OVER ICE CREAM
Make Me (Cry) - Noah Cyrus feat. Labrinth
Kookaburra
Iwake before anyone else. Not startled. Not afraid. Just alert in the way you get when the decision has already been made somewhere deeper than thought.
Last night was perfect.
Everything I needed and more.
The perfect goodbye.
The room is dark, early-morning grey leaking around the edges of the curtains. Bodies breathe around me – slow, uneven, unaware. A soft snore. A shift of fabric. The ordinary sounds of people who still believe there’s time.
There isn’t.
I slide carefully out of bed, easing my weight away so the mattress doesn’t dip. Bones doesn’t stir. His arm stays heavy on the sheets where it fell sometime in the night after I returned to him, warm and real and grounding in a way that makes my chest tighten for exactly one second.
I don’t touch him.
If I do, I won’t leave.
I don’t know if it was my absence, the pregnancy, or getting me back that changed him, that changed all of them, but I miss my monsters.
I gather my clothes quietly – jeans, hoodie, boots – everything practical, everything chosen because it doesn’t require thought. The bathroom door clicks shut behind me, the sound soft but final.
The mirror shows me a face stripped bare. No softness. No performance. Just resolve set into bone.
Good.
I brush my teeth. Tie my hair back. Wash my face, hands and wrists, letting the heat bite just enough to keep me anchored. My jeans feel tight. I blame the parasite.
The bathroom hums faintly with pipes and electricity, a closed space where I can breathe without being watched.
That’s when I see it.
The burner sits on the counter, half-hidden beneath a folded towel like it was never meant to be obvious. Bones’ phone.
I stare at it for a moment longer than necessary, then pick it up. The screen lights instantly. No lock. Of course not.
I sit on the edge of the bath and scroll until I find the number I already know will be there. No name. No label. Just digits.
I’m ready.
I send it before my brain can argue with my hands.
The reply comes almost immediately.
I know.
No questions. No instructions. Just arrogant confirmation.
I slip the phone into my pocket, flush the toilet for show, then step back into the room. Everyone is still asleep. The sight of them hits harder now – unguarded, open, trusting in a way I no longer can afford to be.
I take one last look, willing my hardened heart not to crack.
This is the only way, I tell myself.
Then I leave.
The corridor smells like disinfectant and old carpet. The lift ride feels too slow and too fast all at once. When the doors open into the lobby, I don’t hesitate.
Cold morning air hits my face as I step outside.
And immediately I know I’m not alone.
“Kayla.” The voice comes from the shadows to my left.
I freeze.
Snow steps out of the recessed doorway like he’s been carved there, not emerging so much as resolving into shape.
Same clothes as whatever day it was that he left; it feels like a lifetime ago now.
Same controlled posture. Same eyes that never quite stop moving, cataloguing the world even when they’re looking straight at you.
For half a second, relief flares hot and traitorous in my chest.
Then anger smothers it.
“Where have you been?” I demand.
The question lands clean and flat between us. That split-second pause before a bomb detonates.
Snow opens his mouth.
Closes it.
The silence stretches, deliberate and infuriating.
He studies me like this is a negotiation, like the right angle of approach might still exist.
I let out a short, incredulous laugh at his silence. “You don’t get to do that. Not now.”
“You shouldn’t be leaving,” he says instead. “Not yet.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. “Answer my question.”
He glances past me, scanning the street, the parked cars, the corners of the building. Old habits. Tactical thinking where honesty should be.
“I can’t,” he says finally.
Something inside me goes very still.
“You disappear,” I say quietly. “You stay gone. You watch. And then you show up just in time to tell me what I shouldn’t do.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“No,” I say. “You’re trying to control the timing.”
His jaw tightens. “If you go back now, you’ll lose whatever leverage you think you have.”
“Then tell me what I’m walking into.”
He doesn’t. That silence is heavier than anything he could have said.
I take a step closer, close enough to see the faint bruising along his jaw, old and yellowing.
“You don’t trust me,” I say.
“That’s not fair.”
“I don’t care if it’s fair.” My voice is steady now, dangerous in its calm. “If you won’t tell me the truth, you don’t get to stop me.”
“I’m asking you to wait.”
I shake my head. “You’re asking me to obey.”
Something flickers across his face – frustration, anger, something like fear – but he still doesn’t answer the only question that matters.
And in that moment, I know: whatever he’s been doing, whoever he’s been protecting, he chose silence.
And silence doesn’t get to stand in my way anymore. So I step to one side, intending to walk past him.
Snow moves with me.
Not blocking. Mirroring. Close enough now that I can feel his body heat in the cold morning air, close enough that my skin tightens in warning.
“Kayla,” he pleads, lower. “Listen to me.”
“I am listening,” I reply. “You just aren’t saying anything.”
His hand comes up, slow and careful, like he’s approaching something skittish. His fingers hover near my elbow, not quite touching.
I don’t move away. But I don’t invite it either. My body is at war with me, craving his touch and reassurance that he really is okay, my emotions finally allowing me to feel what I’ve kept locked down since he left, but my own stubborn bloody mindedness will not let me give in to those urges.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” he cajoles. “You don’t have to walk straight back into their hands.”
I look at his hand instead of his face. “Then tell me why.”
He hesitates. Again. The pause is barely there, but it’s enough. It always is.
“You already know enough,” he says, dismissing me.
That does it. Red mist comes down and I step back, creating space between us. “No,” I snap. “I know what I’ve been allowed to know. Nothing more. I’m sick of everyone holding back, lying and manipulating me.”
His hand drops, then rises again, this time higher. He cups my jaw gently, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth like it’s muscle memory. Like this is familiar territory he’s entitled to occupy.
I freeze. Not because I want him to stop. But because I shouldn’t have to tell him to.
“Don’t,” I say.
He leans in anyway, forehead almost touching mine. His breath ghosts across my cheek. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” I reply.
He doesn’t pull away.
His mouth brushes mine – barely a kiss, more an insistence. A reminder. A claim disguised as comfort.
I turn my head and the contact breaks. My heart pangs. I bury it, stepping back sharply, heart pounding now, anger surging up to meet the hurt. “You don’t get to do that.”
Snow blinks, thrown. “Kayla—”
“You don’t get to touch me when you won’t be honest with me,” I say. “You don’t get to use this to cover up what you’re refusing to say.”
“That wasn’t—”
“That was control,” I snap. “Soft control, but control all the same. If you’re trying to control me, you’re no better than them.”
He runs a hand through his hair, frustration flashing across his face. “You’re reading this wrong.”
“No,” I say. “I’m reading it clearly for the first time.”
His voice drops. “If you go back now, you could lose everything.”
“I’ve already lost everything.”
His eyes search mine. “What?”
“All trust is gone. I’m going alone.”
The word sits between us, heavy and immovable.
“You don’t mean that,” he says.
“I do.”
He reaches for me again, this time catching my wrist lightly, as if to anchor me, to stop me from stepping away. The contact is brief. Controlled.
Unwanted.
I pull free immediately. “Don’t.”
He releases me, hands lifting in a gesture that’s supposed to look conciliatory. It doesn’t.
“I can’t tell you everything,” he says quietly.
“Then you don’t get to decide anything,” I reply.
I move to pass him again.
This time, he doesn’t mirror me.
He steps into my path.
Not hard. Not aggressive. Just enough to remove the option of walking away.
“Kayla,” he says again, and now there’s an edge to it. “Stop.”
Something in me tightens.
“Move,” I reply.
He doesn’t.
“I’m not letting you do this,” he says. “Not like this.”
I laugh, short and humourless. “You ran and you lied. So you don’t get a vote.”
His hands lift, palms out, placating. “You’re angry. I get that. But you’re not thinking straight.”
That’s the wrong thing to say.
“I am thinking perfectly clearly,” I tell him. “You’re the one panicking.”
His jaw clenches. “You don’t understand what happens if you go back on their terms.”
“It’s not on their terms,” I say. “They’re on mine.”
He steps closer, crowding my space again. I can feel it now, the tension radiating off him, the careful control starting to slip around the edges.
“Just wait,” he says. “A day. An hour. Let me fix this.”
“Fix what?” I demand. “The fact that you kept me in the dark? The fact that you ran? Or the fact that I don’t trust you anymore?”
His hand comes up again, faster this time, fingers catching my forearm.
Not rough.
Not gentle either.
The contact sends a jolt straight up my spine.
I freeze for half a heartbeat, staring down at his hand like it doesn’t belong there. Like if I look long enough, it’ll realise its mistake and let go on its own.
It doesn’t.
“Let go,” I say.
He doesn’t tighten his grip, but he doesn’t release it either. “You’re not leaving,” he says. “Not until you listen to me.”
Something inside me snaps cleanly in two.
I wrench my arm free and shove him hard in the chest.