Chapter 76 Bond Over Ice Cream #2
Snow staggers back a step, surprise flashing across his face before it twists into something rawer. He recovers quickly, feet planting, shoulders squaring like this is instinct now rather than choice.
“Don’t do that,” he warns.
“Don’t touch me,” I fire back.
“You’re making this worse.”
I step forward instead of back. “You don’t get to decide that.”
His hands come up again, catching my shoulders this time, fingers digging in just enough to hurt. Not an attack. A restraint. A decision made for me.
That’s it.
I don’t think. I react.
My knee comes up hard between his legs.
Snow gasps, grip loosening as he doubles slightly. I don’t wait. I shove him again, sending him back into the wall with a dull, satisfying thud. His head snaps to the side. Blood appears at the corner of his mouth, bright and immediate. He spits.
For a second, we just stare at each other.
My heart is hammering. My hands are shaking. Not from fear.
From fury.
“You do not put your hands on me without my express consent, Callum Frost,” I say, voice low and shaking with restraint. “Not ever.”
He straightens slowly, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes are wild now, desperation finally burning through the control.
“I’m trying to save you,” he says hoarsely.
“No,” I reply. “You’re trying to stop me choosing.”
I attempt to move past him again.
This time, he grabs for me without thinking, fingers catching fabric at my back, tugging me off balance. The move is clumsy, panicked.
And that’s when I know.
He isn’t protecting me.
He’s afraid of what happens if I go back without him controlling the narrative.
I spin, shoving him away again, hard enough that he stumbles into the streetlight pole, breath leaving him in a sharp grunt.
“Stay away from me,” I say.
He looks at me like he doesn’t recognise who I am anymore.
Good.
Because I don’t recognise him either.
Footsteps hit the pavement behind me. Fast. Heavy. Multiple.
“Kayla!” Honey’s voice carries first, sharp with panic. Then Bones, swearing loudly, the sound already edged with violence. Ghost’s comes last – calmer, cutting through the noise like a blade.
I turn just as they spill out of the hotel entrance.
They take it in all at once.
Snow against the wall, blood on his mouth, posture half-coiled like he’s bracing for another hit. Me squared up in front of him, breath still coming too fast, fists clenched at my sides.
They didn’t see the beginning. They didn’t see the hesitation, the silence, the hands where they didn’t belong.
They only see the aftermath.
Bones’ expression changes instantly. No pause. No questions. His body shifts forward like he’s already committed.
“What the fuck did you do?” he snarls, eyes locked on Snow.
Snow straightens, wiping his mouth again, jaw setting hard. “This isn’t—”
Bones doesn’t wait.
He lunges.
Snow ducks on instinct, the movement sharp and practised. Bones’ fist grazes his shoulder instead of his face. Honey shouts something – my name, I think – but it’s lost in the sudden chaos as bodies collide.
Ghost moves fast, grabbing Bones’ arm, trying to pull him back. “Stop—”
It stops being a scuffle and turns into something uglier.
Bones drives Snow back into the wall by the hotel entrance, forearm across his chest, pinning him hard enough that the doorframe rattles. Snow’s elbow slams up into Bones’ ribs, sharp and desperate, and Bones grunts but doesn’t loosen his hold.
Nightshade appears out of nowhere. He’s there a second later, grabbing Snow by the collar and hauling him forward like he’s about to take his head off with his bare hands.
“Did you touch her?” Nightshade growls.
Snow’s eyes flick to me.
That hesitation costs him.
Nightshade doesn’t shout. He doesn’t threaten. He just hits.
The sound is ugly – fist to bone, breath knocked loose. Snow stumbles sideways, catching himself on the streetlight, eyes flashing up to Nightshade with pure, unfiltered fury.
Hatchet is already there, stepping between bodies, hands out, trying to break lines of attack without choosing sides.
“Enough,” Ghost snaps. “All of you—”
Snow swings back, catching Nightshade across the jaw.
Not clean. Desperate. Nightshade barely reacts, just snarls and goes for him again, grabbing his collar and slamming him back into the wall, Bones right beside him, the pair of them raining blows down on him relentlessly until I can’t breathe.
All I can do is look on in horror, halting words trapped in my throat.
Bones lands a punch to his ribs. Snow grunts, folding slightly before shoving Bones away with a sharp elbow. Honey finally gets between them, arms spread wide, breath coming fast.
Snow spits blood onto the pavement. “Get off me.”
Honey tries to wedge himself between them and fails – gets shoved aside by sheer momentum.
Ghost catches him before he hits the ground, but Ghost’s attention flicks back instantly, eyes narrowing, posture shifting.
Hatchet is already moving, quick and controlled, trying to separate hands from throats without getting his own bones broken.
Nightshade’s fist cocks back again.
Snow’s gaze flashes to me again – quick, warning, pleading, infuriating.
And something in Nightshade’s face hardens as if that glance is proof of guilt.
He swings.
I hear the impact even over the traffic hum – dull and brutal. Snow’s head snaps sideways. His shoulder hits the wall. Bones hits him again, low, into the body, like he’s trying to fold him in half.
The sound that comes out of Snow isn’t a whimper.
It’s a laugh.
Short. Ragged. Insane.
“You don’t understand,” he coughs, and there’s blood on his teeth when he looks up. “You’re all already—”
Nightshade grabs him again, slams him back, and this time it’s not about protection. It’s about punishment.
Hatchet catches Nightshade’s arm mid-movement. Nightshade rips free with a growl like an animal. Hatchet stumbles, then recovers, jaw clenched, eyes sharp – no fear, just calculation. He reaches for his pad and pen like he can write a line that will make them stop.
He can’t.
No one is reading anything right now.
Honey lunges again, gets an elbow to the shoulder for his trouble, swears loudly. “Oi! Stop! Stop—”
Ghost’s voice cuts through, colder. “Bones. Nightshade. Enough.”
They don’t listen.
They’re not hearing him.
I feel like I’m watching it from underwater.
They’re hearing the story their brains wrote the moment they saw blood and me standing there.
They’re hearing betrayal.
They’re hearing threat.
They’re hearing mine.
Snow drives his knee up into Bones’ stomach, hard enough to make Bones grunt and stagger. Snow twists, wrenches free, and the second he’s loose Nightshade goes for him again.
It’s going to escalate. It’s going to keep escalating until someone cracks a skull or pulls a weapon or the police show up and the whole street becomes another cage.
I feel the moment right before it tips.
The precise second before control is gone.
And something in me rises.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Authority.
“Enough!” I shout. My voice comes out loud enough that it snaps the air.
They freeze – not immediately, but enough. Bones’ fists are still clenched. Nightshade’s chest heaves. Snow leans against the wall, breathing hard, blood streaked down his chin. Honey goes silent.
Even Hatchet stops moving.
For a heartbeat, the only sound is breathing. Rough. Ragged. Hot.
Every head turns to me.
I step forward into the space between them like it belongs to me. My hands are steady now. My pulse is still hammering, but it doesn’t own me.
“Back,” I say, looking at Bones first.
He hesitates – one fraction too long – then steps away.
I turn to Nightshade.
His eyes are wild, jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumps. He looks like a man on the edge of doing something he can’t undo.
“Nightshade,” I say.
Just his name.
He holds my gaze for a beat, then forces himself to step back.
Snow stays where he is, pressed to the wall, blood on his mouth, chest heaving. He doesn’t look at the others now. He looks at me like he’s trying to decide if he’s lost or been spared.
I don’t give him that comfort.
This is what it looks like from the outside, I realise. This is what they think they’re seeing.
Snow looks like a threat.
I look like a victim.
And no one is asking me what I want.
“What you think you saw,” I say to all of them, “is not what happened.”
Bones’ voice is rough. “He put his hands on you.”
“He tried,” I correct.
Nightshade’s gaze flickers, sharp. “Tried what?”
I look at Snow. Then back to Nightshade.
“Tried to stop me leaving,” I say. “Without telling me why.”
Silence stretches, thick with restraint.
Snow’s head snaps up. “Kayla—”
I hold up a hand. “Don’t.”
His flinch tells me that the word lands harder than any blow.
“I was leaving,” I continue. “He didn’t like that.”
Nightshade looks at me, searching my face like he’s checking for damage he can’t see. “Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head once. “Not how you’re thinking.”
Snow straightens, wiping his mouth again, eyes never leaving me. “You don’t know what you’re walking into.”
“I know you didn’t trust me – or any of us – with the truth,” I reply. “And that’s enough.”
Bones takes a step forward again, jaw tight. “You want me to finish this?”
“No,” I say. “I want you to listen to me.”
That surprises them.
“This ends now,” I say. “The fighting. The guessing. The protecting me from information like I’m a child.”
I let the words settle into the space.
Then, calmly, like I’m stating a fact about the weather:
“I’m going back.”
No one speaks at first.
They’re still coming down from the adrenaline, from the instinct to protect, from the sudden realisation that I didn’t need rescuing in the way they assumed.
Bones’ hands flex and unclench. Nightshade’s breathing is still too fast. Honey looks like he’s about to crack a joke and realises it would be a mistake.