Kyla changed her outfit three times before settling on a dark blue dress that hit just above her knee. It wasn't too fancy but still nice enough for the Italian restaurant Josh had mentioned. She'd even put on makeup, which she hardly ever did, and spent twenty minutes trying to make her hair look good instead of just throwing it in a ponytail.
Her phone buzzed. Josh: "On my way. Fair warning, I'm wearing an actual button-up shirt. I know, very fancy."
She smiled and texted back: "I'm wearing a dress. Who are we?"
"Adults, apparently. Terrifying."
When Josh knocked on her door at exactly seven, Kyla opened it to find him standing there in dark jeans and a nice gray button-up shirt, holding a small bouquet of flowers. He looked good. Really good. Different from his usual casual look.
"Wow," he said, staring at her. "You look... wow."
"You said wow twice."
"Because you look that good. Wow doesn't cover it." Josh handed her the flowers—a mix of daisies and roses. "These are for you. The lady at the flower shop said they represent new beginnings, which felt appropriate."
Kyla felt her cheeks warm. "They're beautiful. Thank you." She put them in water quickly, then grabbed her purse. "Ready?"
"Absolutely. I made reservations and everything. Very adult of me."
The restaurant was called Bella Notte, tucked on a quiet street downtown. It had dim lighting, candles on every table, and the kind of atmosphere that practically screamed romantic date. The host led them to a small table by the window with a view of the street.
"This is really nice," Kyla said, looking at the menu. Everything was in Italian with English translations underneath.
"Yeah, I might have asked Stevens for recommendations. He comes here with his wife all the time." Josh looked nervous, fidgeting with his napkin. "I've never actually done this before. The whole proper date thing. Usually I just grab food with someone and call it hanging out."
"Me neither. My last relationship ended badly. He didn't like that I was becoming a cop. Said it was too dangerous and I should pick something safer." Kyla shrugged. "Obviously that didn't work out."
"His loss. Although, given what we've been through this week, he might have had a point about the danger thing."
"True. But at least you understand it. You're in it with me."
Their waiter appeared—a tall man with an Italian accent who introduced himself as Marco and immediately started recommending dishes. They ended up ordering pasta carbonara and chicken marsala to share, along with an appetizer of bruschetta that Marco insisted was the best in the city.
The food was incredible. They talked and laughed, sharing bites of each other's meals and arguing about whether carbonara or marsala was better. Josh told her embarrassing stories about his police academy days, like the time he accidentally pepper-sprayed himself during training. Kyla shared stories about growing up with a cop for a dad, the times he'd bring home crazy stories that she'd thought were made up until this week.
"It's weird," Kyla said, twirling pasta on her fork. "A week ago, we didn't know each other. Now I feel like I've known you forever."
"Trauma bonding," Josh joked. "Nothing says connection like fighting interdimensional threats together."
"Is that what this is? Trauma bonding?"
"No." Josh reached across the table and took her hand. "I think this is something real. Something good. The trauma just sped things up."
Kyla squeezed his hand, feeling warm and happy and like maybe everything was finally falling into place. They'd saved the world, they had exciting new jobs, and she was on a date with someone who actually understood her life. Things were good.
That's when the screaming started.
At first, Kyla thought maybe it was coming from the TV mounted in the corner. But then more screams joined in, louder, closer. People outside were running past the restaurant windows, panic on their faces.
Josh was already standing, pulling out his phone. "What the—"
The restaurant's front window exploded inward with a deafening crash. Glass flew everywhere as something massive forced its way inside. Kyla threw herself backward, pulling Josh with her as they hit the floor.
Through the dust and chaos, Kyla saw it.
A creature easily eight feet tall, made of what looked like ice and frost. Its body was crystalline and jagged, with arms that ended in razor-sharp claws. Where eyes should be, there were just dark hollow spaces that somehow still seemed to see everything. Water dripped from its body, leaving puddles on the floor, and the temperature in the restaurant dropped instantly.
The creature roared—a sound like cracking ice and winter wind—and swept one massive arm across the restaurant. Tables went flying. Chairs shattered. People screamed and ran for the back exit.
"What is that?!" Marco the waiter shouted, frozen in terror.
"Not from around here!" Josh yelled back. He turned to Kyla. "We need to get everyone out!"
But the creature wasn't interested in everyone. Its hollow eyes fixed on Kyla and Josh, and it started moving toward them with terrifying speed.
"It knows we're cops," Kyla said, dodging as the creature swung at them. Its claws missed her by inches, leaving gouges in the wall behind her.
"Or it knows we closed the portal!" Josh grabbed a chair and threw it at the creature. The chair shattered against its icy body, doing absolutely nothing. "That's not good!"
They ran for the back of the restaurant, the creature pursuing them. Behind it, Kyla could see through the broken window—two more of these things were outside, terrorizing people on the street. Cars crashed as drivers panicked. Store windows shattered. It was complete chaos.
"We need weapons!" Kyla shouted as they burst through the kitchen door. The cooking staff was already gone, fled through the back exit.
"Weapons that work on ice monsters!" Josh scanned the kitchen frantically. "What hurts ice?"
"Heat!" Kyla grabbed a pot of boiling water from the stove and threw it at the creature as it smashed through the kitchen door. The water splashed across its chest, and the creature shrieked—an awful sound that made Kyla's teeth hurt. Where the water had hit, the ice was melting, revealing something darker underneath.
"It worked!" Josh grabbed another pot. "Keep hitting it with hot stuff!"
They worked together, Kyla throwing boiling water while Josh used a kitchen torch, the kind for crème brûlée. It wasn't much, but every time the flames touched the creature, it recoiled, pieces of its icy body melting away.
But it wasn't enough. The creature was huge and they were just slowing it down. And there were two more outside.
"We need backup," Kyla said, pulling out her phone. "And bigger weapons."
She called 911 while Josh held the creature back with the kitchen torch. "This is Officer Martinez, badge number 847. We have a situation at Bella Notte restaurant, corner of Fifth and Main. Multiple hostile... entities attacking civilians. We need all available units and—"
The creature lunged forward, knocking the torch from Josh's hand. Josh rolled away, barely avoiding its claws. The torch skittered across the floor, flames dying.
"Fire extinguisher!" Josh yelled.
Kyla spotted one on the wall, grabbed it, and threw it to Josh. But instead of spraying the creature, he threw the entire extinguisher at the stove's gas burners, where pots were still boiling.
"Get down!" he shouted.
Kyla dove behind the prep counter. There was a whoosh of sound, then a massive explosion of steam and heat as the extinguisher ruptured and the gas ignited. The creature shrieked again, this time in genuine pain. Through the steam, Kyla could see its body cracking, pieces breaking off.
"Out the back! Now!" Josh grabbed her hand and they ran through the rear exit into the alley.
Outside was chaos. Police sirens wailed in the distance. People were running in every direction. And in the street, Kyla could see the other two ice creatures wreaking havoc. One was flipping over a car while the other smashed through a storefront.
"Where did these things come from?" Josh panted, pulling out his phone to call for backup.
"I don't know, but they're tearing the city apart." Kyla watched as one creature grabbed a street lamp and ripped it from the ground like pulling a weed. "We need to stop them."
"How? We don't have flamethrowers!"
As if answering his question, Kyla heard engines roaring. Three fire trucks came around the corner, sirens blaring. But behind them were police cars—lots of them. And leading the pack was a black SUV that Kyla recognized.
Sergeant Chen.
The vehicles screeched to a halt, and Chen jumped out, megaphone in hand. "All civilians, evacuate the area immediately! Officers, establish a perimeter!"
He spotted Kyla and Josh in the alley and jogged over. "Martinez, Reeves. Care to explain why your first official date turned into a monster attack?"
"We were hoping you could tell us, sir," Josh said. "These things just appeared out of nowhere."
"Actually, they came from the harbor," Chen said, lowering the megaphone. "Witnesses reported seeing them rise out of the water about twenty minutes ago. They headed straight for downtown. Straight for..." He looked at them meaningfully. "Straight for you two."
Kyla's stomach dropped. "They're hunting us?"
"Looks like it. Whatever happened at City Hall, someone or something isn't happy about it." Chen pulled out his service weapon. "We need to neutralize these things before they hurt anyone else. Any ideas?"
"Heat," Kyla said immediately. "Fire, boiling water, anything hot. Ice melts."
"Ice monsters," Chen muttered. "Of course. Why would they be anything normal?" He grabbed his radio. "All units, focus fire on the hostile entities. Fire department, I need everything you've got—water, foam, anything we can ignite. We're cooking these things."
The firefighters looked confused but started setting up. Meanwhile, more police arrived, forming a perimeter around the creatures. The ice monsters seemed confused by all the activity, spinning around to track all the movement.
Then, as if receiving a signal, all three creatures turned and looked directly at Kyla and Josh.
"Oh no," Kyla said.
"Yeah," Josh agreed. "That's not good."
The creatures charged.
Everything happened at once. Police opened fire, bullets pinging off the ice creatures' bodies. The firefighters unleashed their hoses, but regular water at regular temperature did nothing. One creature grabbed a police car and threw it like a toy. Officers scattered, barely getting out of the way.
"We need actual fire!" Kyla shouted over the chaos.
Chen was already on it. "Stevens! The gas main! Cut it and ignite!"
Officer Stevens, who'd been taking cover behind a cruiser, nodded and ran toward a marked utility access point on the street. He worked fast, and moments later, Kyla heard a hiss of escaping gas.
"Everyone back!" Chen ordered. "Get clear!"
Josh grabbed Kyla and they ran, putting distance between themselves and the street. Chen fired a flare gun at the escaping gas.
The explosion was massive.
A wall of flame erupted from the street, engulfing all three ice creatures. Their shrieks echoed through downtown, an awful sound of pain and rage. The heat was intense even from where Kyla stood, making her shield her face.
When the flames died down, the creatures were still standing. But they were smaller now, their icy bodies melted and cracked. And they looked angry.
"Again!" Chen ordered. "Keep the pressure on!"
The firefighters had figured it out now. They doused the creatures with water, then officers with flare guns ignited it where the creatures stood in puddles. It was working, slowly but surely. The creatures were melting, piece by piece.
But one creature, the largest one, wasn't giving up. It fixed its hollow eyes on Kyla and charged, moving faster than something that size should be able to move.
"Kyla!" Josh tackled her out of the way as the creature's claws swept through where she'd been standing. They rolled across the pavement, and Kyla felt her dress tear on the concrete.
The creature loomed over them, raising its massive claws for a killing blow.
A stream of fire hit it directly in the chest.
The creature stumbled backward, shrieking. Kyla looked up to see a firefighter with what looked like a makeshift flamethrower—probably modified from their equipment. The flames were relentless, eating away at the creature's body.
Josh pulled Kyla to her feet and they scrambled away. All around them, police and firefighters were working together, using heat and flame to destroy the creatures. It was working. The monsters were falling apart, their icy bodies unable to withstand the sustained heat.
Finally, the last creature collapsed, its body cracking apart and melting into puddles of water that steamed on the hot pavement.
Silence fell over the street.
Everyone stood there, breathing hard, staring at the puddles that used to be monsters. Sirens still wailed in the distance. Smoke and steam filled the air. Several buildings were damaged, cars were destroyed, and the street looked like a war zone.
But they'd won.
Kyla found Josh's hand and held it tight. They were both covered in dirt and water and probably glass from the restaurant. Her nice dress was ruined. Josh's button-up shirt was torn. So much for their romantic date.
"You two okay?" Chen walked over, looking tired and stressed.
"Define okay," Josh said.
"Still alive counts as okay in my book." Chen surveyed the damage. "We're going to need statements from everyone, full reports, and someone's going to have to explain this to the mayor. Again."
"Sir, how did these things even get here?" Kyla asked. "The portal's closed. All the fragments were destroyed."
"I don't know. But we're going to find out." Chen's expression was grim. "This might not be over. If these things could come through, there might be more."
The implications of that hit Kyla hard. They'd thought they'd ended the threat. Closed the portal, stopped the invasion. But what if they'd only delayed it? What if there were other ways through?
"Monday just got a lot more complicated," Josh muttered.
"Yeah." Kyla watched as emergency crews started dealing with the aftermath. "Welcome to the task force, I guess."
"Best first date ever," Josh joked weakly.
Despite everything, Kyla found herself smiling. "At least it wasn't boring."
"Never boring with you, Martinez."
They gave their statements to Chen, helped coordinate the cleanup effort, and watched as the mysterious puddles where the creatures had been were collected for analysis. By the time they were cleared to leave, it was past midnight and they were both exhausted.
Josh drove Kyla home in silence, both of them processing what had happened. When they pulled up outside her building, neither of them moved for a moment.
"I'm sorry," Josh said finally. "I wanted tonight to be perfect. Nice dinner, good conversation, no life-threatening situations. We made it about forty-five minutes."
"Hey, forty-five minutes is better than nothing." Kyla turned to face him. "And honestly? As terrible as that was, I'm glad I was with you. I don't think I could have handled that alone."
"We make a good team. Even when our dates get attacked by ice monsters."
"Especially then." Kyla leaned over and kissed him, not caring that they were both a mess. "Rain check on the rest of dinner?"
"Definitely. Maybe somewhere less public next time. Fewer windows for monsters to crash through."
Kyla laughed and got out of the car. As she walked to her building, she turned back to wave. Josh was still sitting there, watching to make sure she got inside safely.
Inside her apartment, Kyla looked at herself in the mirror. Her makeup was smeared, her hair was a disaster, and her dress was torn and dirty. She looked like she'd been in a fight.
Because she had been.
And tomorrow—well, today now, technically—they'd have to figure out where those creatures came from and if more were coming.
But that was future Kyla's problem. Right now, present Kyla needed sleep and maybe a shower that lasted about three hours.
She thought about Josh's comment about trauma bonding. Maybe he'd been more right than he knew. But she also knew what she felt was real. You didn't fake the way he'd thrown himself in front of her when that creature attacked. Didn't fake the way he held her hand through the chaos.
Whatever this was between them, it was real. And it was worth fighting for.
Even if fighting meant literal monsters sometimes.
End of Chapter 13