a killer instinct was coined in the early boxing world as a protective, cold mentality that surges to one's consciousness and turns one into a vicious defense practitioner. everyone has a killer instinct. for harry styles, that ruthless mentality always seemed to circle back to one singular thing - her. --- but she doesn't let me go far, keeping our faces inches apart and my lips curl up as i chew this gum in between my teeth. her fingers roughly press into my cheeks and she smiles back with a devilish, lustful glint in her eyes. "you're gonna want me in control more often after i'm done with you, baby." she whispers, taking me aback with the boldness of her statement as she simply smiles before letting go of my face with a light shove. i slowly scoff and she hums as i shake my head at her. "yeah? prove it." i taunt and she sinks her straight white teeth into her bottom lip with a smirk. --- || mature and explicit content, read at your own risk * ||

** Violet Bennett lives under the weight of a name she barely understands. Surrounded by secrets and lies, she's trained to survive. But when the lines between real and fake blur, Violet begins to realize that nothing in her world is as it seems. Every truth is layered in deception, and protection always comes at a cost. Sometimes that cost is your voice. Sometimes it's your freedom. And sometimes it's your heart. Always nearby is Harry Styles, mysterious, sharp, cold and a constant reminder that danger is closer than she thinks. Covered in tattoos and silence, he watches like he knows something she doesn't. Maybe he does. There's something between them. She feels it in the silence, in the way his anger feels personal, in the quiet moments that say more than words ever could. But love, if that's what this is, has no place in a world built on secrets. in a life ruled by lies and shadows, love doesn't arrive without a cost. And falling for someone like him might mean losing everything else. Because in this world, love isn't soft. It's a weapon. And Violet is already in the crossfire. *** "You shouldn't smoke." The voice cut through me before I even processed it. I spun around instinctively, heart racing. And there he was. I blinked. "Holy shit. You scared me." He didn't move. Didn't even flinch. "Didn't know I had to announce myself." "How long have you been up here?" He looked away, back out over the skyline. "A while." "You're always hiding," I muttered. "And you always follow." ** 04/05/25 -