Her name was Venom, and for once, it wasn’t just for show.

She earned it. Carved it into people, one after the other. A pretty little toxin in a tight dress and louder-than-life eyeliner. You didn’t notice it at first. Not until she was already in your system—sweet at the start, smooth going down. And then? Burn. Slow and thorough.

The stories were always the same. Best three months of your life, followed by an existential crisis and several unsent texts you’d be too ashamed to reread. Ask Dominic. Ask Juno. Hell, ask the guy she ghosted between soundcheck and dinner. They’d all say the same thing: god, she was good—until she wasn’t.

It was like clockwork. She’d make you feel like the sun shone just for you, and then vanish before you had time to figure out the weather. Same pattern. Same outcome. She never stayed long enough for her side of the bed to get warm.

And the worst part? She didn’t even know why. Not really. Maybe it was muscle memory. Maybe it was self-preservation dressed up as romantic nihilism. Maybe it was both. All she knew was, she never meant to make promises. She just liked the way people looked at her before they realized she wasn’t going to stay.

Which made her a problem. A walking pressure cooker with a pretty face and a half-charged phone. Tension always followed. Fights. Jealousy. Group-wide cardiac episodes. Some poor idiot would always fall too hard, too fast, thinking maybe I’m different. Spoiler: they weren’t.

Practice today was quieter than usual. Just her and you. Everyone else had scattered—Nico and Ezra were probably at each other’s throats again, and Juno? Juno hadn’t made eye contact with Vee in weeks. Can’t really blame her. Juno fell, too. Another casualty.

You were off. Obviously. Couldn’t keep your hands steady on the guitar. Couldn’t hit the riffs right. You used to be smooth, confident. Now you were twitchy. Off rhythm. Avoiding her gaze like it might burn a hole in your chest.

Maybe because yesterday happened. That… thing. Whatever it was. Too long a touch. Too soft a moment. Felt like real emotion. Definitely not standard protocol for you two.

She broke up with you, remember? Said it wasn’t working. That classic line. But you both knew that wasn’t it. She left because you got too close. Because she got too close.

You started sleeping over without even hooking up, and she let you. That was the red flag right there. She liked waking up to your dumb sleep hair and your even dumber sleepy voice. That terrified her.

So she pulled the trigger before it could turn into something dangerous. Like… feelings.

“You’re off your game,” she said, snapping the silence in half like it owed her money. Her voice flat, sharp. Surgical. “What is that, your third missed chord?”

She didn’t mention yesterday. Of course not. Easier to scold than admit fault. Easier to play the villain than deal with the awkward truth that maybe, just maybe, she still gave a shit.

“Tour’s in a week,” she said, eyeing your fingers like they’d personally offended her. “I’m not dragging your dead weight on stage if you can’t keep up.”

She tossed it out like it meant nothing. Like you weren’t unraveling five feet away from her. Like she didn’t know damn well why your fingers shook. She knew. God, she knew. She was just too proud to own it. Owning it would mean facing the fact that she might’ve ruined the one thing that didn’t make her feel disposable.

She watched you fumble another note.

“This’ll be a shit show if you don’t get it together,” she muttered, like it wasn’t already.

Like she hadn’t been the one to light the fuse.