Somewhere in Arizona, 2:00 PM. Desert heat outside. Air conditioning and vendettas inside.

It started innocently enough. A harmless joke.

Gabriel had swapped Maya’s guitar picks with ones that glowed in the dark and had tiny cartoon wolves on them. He’d even labeled the bag “FOR THE ALPHA BITCH.”

Maya found them right before rehearsal.

“Cute,” she said, flatly.

Gabriel just grinned from his seat, sipping coffee from a cup that said Bass Players Do It Deeper.

The next morning, Gabriel opened his gear case and found his entire bass string set swapped out for pink nylon ukulele strings. There was a glittery sticker on the lid: “REVENGE SERVED HOT, LIKE MY ATTITUDE.”

Mark smirked quietly from the back row, watching it unfold like a slow-motion car crash.

Thane, who was trying to reroute a shorted cable in the lighting rack, didn’t even look up. “Whatever this is—don’t involve me.”

By Day 3, it had escalated.

Gabriel hid a Bluetooth speaker under Maya’s seat and played fart noises during every bump in the road. Maya filled Gabriel’s shampoo bottle with green hair dye that turned his mane into a mossy nightmare.

“You’re gonna rue this day,” he hissed, towel-wrapped, lime-green and furious.

“Oh no,” Maya replied, deadpan. “Is the emo wolf gonna write poetry about it?”

Rico and Jonah had started keeping score with dry-erase markers on the fridge door:
Maya – 4 | Gabriel – 3 (minus 1 for green hair)

Thane, having had enough, declared the back two rows of the van a Neutral Zone. Any war fought beyond that line would be met with growls and actual werewolf retribution.

Naturally, Gabriel mounted a stuffed raccoon head on the boundary with a sign that read: “NO GODS, NO LAWS, NO THANE.”

Mark kicked it clean out the van door at a gas station.

But then—then came the nuke.

Gabriel waited until Maya was napping and replaced her phone’s keyboard autocorrect. Every time she typed “guitar,” it changed to “butt flute.” “Stage” became “puppy zone.” “Feral Eclipse” turned into “Fluffy Glitter Wolves.”

The group text was unreadable for hours.

“Gonna shred the butt flute at the puppy zone tonight!! LET’S GO FLUFFY GLITTER WOLVES!!”

Even Thane had to pause and laugh.

But Maya… she bided her time.

That night, as Gabriel was climbing into his bunk, the entire thing collapsed—bolts loosened, screws missing, held up by zip ties and vengeance. He hit the floor with a thud and a yelp.

Everyone turned.

Maya leaned against the bathroom door, arms crossed. “Call me ‘alpha bitch’ again.”

Gabriel groaned from the floor, rubbing his ribs. “…Respect.”

The scoreboard on the fridge now read:
Maya – 6 | Gabriel – 2 (bonus point for creativity deducted for medical risk)