ONE: The Neighbor

ERIS

“I swear to the Goddess, Mia, I’ll pay you back the second I stop choosing between gas money and actual food,” I say into my cracked-ass phone, pacing the three feet of kitchen space I have left in this shithole apartment.

There’s a pause. That heavy kind of silence that says don’t bother.

Then—click.

The call cuts off.

One by one, the bridges back to my old life keep burning themselves to ash. I didn’t even have to strike the match when she tells me to “Grow up.”

Grow up?

Sure. Let me just grow a money tree out of my ass real quick.

I just stand there, staring at the blank screen. “Right. Cool. Love that for me,” I mutter, tossing the phone onto the couch. The couch squeaks like it might die from the effort. Honestly, same.

Rent’s due in two days. I’ve got twenty bucks to my name, two expired cans of soup, and a half-broken microwave that's basically a fire hazard at this point. And that's just the highlight reel.

I drag a hand through my tangled mess of ginger hair and wince when my fingers catch on a knot. I should probably shower. Or sleep. Or eat. Preferably all three, but let’s not get crazy.

Mia was the last one. The last idiot dumb enough to pick up when they saw my name flash across the screen. Now it's just me. Me, the moldy smell coming from the sink I swear I bleached yesterday, and the rent that's two weeks past due.

I rub my face hard enough to almost scrape my skin off. Ity doesn’t change the fact that I was a banished Omega. 

Now I'm here, a wannabe human-world doctor who is still wolf-less at twenty fucking years old and broke enough to consider selling a kidney on Craigslist.

I slam the cupboard door shut, which is hilarious, considering there’s literally nothing in it besides half a bag of stale tortilla chips and a jar of pickles. Dinner of champions.

A breeze floats through the cracked window above the sink, ruffling the few sticky notes I taped there when I first moved in. “You got this!” one of them says in neon pink marker. I flip it off because no, bitch, I don’t.

The cheap mirror nailed above the counter catches my reflection. Same shit, different day. Messy ginger hair that’s pretending it’s a style choice. Green eyes that always look more pissed off than pretty. 

Faded skull-and-roses tattoo winding down my left shoulder to my forearm, a reminder of dumber days when I thought ink would make me look tougher than I felt.

It didn’t.

My stomach growls, loud enough to echo, and I’m digging through the pantry for something—anything—when the buzzer shrieks through the apartment like it's trying to give me a heart attack.

I flinch so hard I whack my elbow on the counter. “Motherf—goddamn it,” I hiss, cradling my arm. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!”

Please don’t be Ms. Donatelli. Please don't be Ms. Donatelli.

The buzzer for the front door screeches again like a dying cat, slicing through the heavy silence.

“I said I'm coming!” I yell once more, tripping over the corner of the rug as I fumble toward the door.

Mrs. Donatelli—my landlady from hell—is the type who'd repo your kidneys if you were late on rent. Short, stocky, built like a fire hydrant with a beehive hairdo and a permanent scowl carved into her face. If Satan had a secretary, it’d be her.

“I swear, Ms. Donatelli, I’m actually getting the money this time. Like—I have a plan. I’m—”

It’s not Ms. Donatelli.

It’s a dude in a brown jacket, holding a battered-looking pizza box and looking like he’d rather be literally anywhere else.

“Delivery for . . . uh . . .” He squints at the receipt. “Dante Morelli?”

I blink. “What?”

Not again.

He holds out the box as if it might bite him. He scrunches his nose at the smell of the box. “Paid already. Tip’s included.”

Paid . . .?

“I didn’t order any goddamn package. But that guy surely does.” I say, but my hand is already reaching for it. I ought to give that guy next door some nagging. I can't believe it's another misdelivery again.

For Goddess' sake! His apartment is 407! Four-Zero-Three!

“Hey, whatever, lady,” he mutters, already half-turned away. “Have a good one.”

“Seriously?” I mutter, glancing over my shoulder down the cracked hallway.

The delivery guy’s already gone, disappearing like a little bitch who knows damn well this isn’t mine.

I nudge the door wider, peeking both ways — left, right — half-expecting him to be lurking out there.

Tall, tatted, terrifying. The neighbor who moved in last month, in Apartment 407. The one who looks like he could break spines, cunts, and the fucking planet if he felt like it.

I’ve only caught glimpses of him though.

Six-foot-seven of bad news wrapped in black leather and tight jeans. His black hair like sin itself, always messy like he just rolled out of some other girl’s bed. Tanned skin stretched over muscles that didn’t just happen by accident.

And those eyes— Christ, those eyes. Crimson, like someone dipped rubies into gasoline and set them on fire. No one should be allowed to look like that and still exist in public.

It’s offensive, honestly.

And yet here I am, holding his goddamn package again because apparently, the universe thinks it’s hilarious. Normally, I’d drag my ass over to his door, knock like I wasn’t shitting myself, and shove the thing into his hands while pretending not to stare at the veins running down his arms.

But not today.

Today, I’m tired, broke, and two seconds from losing whatever shred of dignity I have left. Fuck it. If fate keeps throwing free shit at my doorstep, maybe it’s a sign. Maybe this one’s a candle set or some luxury lotion he’s too manly to admit he uses.

Maybe it’s something harmless.

Maybe I deserve a fucking win.

I snatch the box off the floor, shooting one last paranoid look down the hall. No sign of Apartment 407. No sign of his huge terrifying hot ass storming after me. I walk back to the living room. Jesus, this one stinks like hell. What in the world is Mr. Hot Guy Next Door even buying.

Maybe I ought to give him a lesson and have this one for myself. It's free, and it has been an inconvenience with him sending his packages wrong all the effing time.

It’s the fifth goddamn time this week.

I stare down at the box like it just personally insulted me. Big. Heavy. Reeking faintly of some weird metallic smell under the cardboard.

Good enough.

I slam the door, twisting the lock twice for good measure, and march into my kitchen like I didn’t just commit a federal crime.

The box hits the table with a heavy thud. Too heavy for bath bombs.

Maybe a blender? Maybe the dude’s a secret smoothie guy.

“Here goes nothing,” I mutter, grabbing a steak knife from the drawer. I slice through the tape, my heart banging way too fast for something this stupid. The cardboard peels open with a pathetic whine.

A sick, metallic smell punches me in the face.

I freeze.

My stomach lurches so violently I nearly lose the slice of pizza I inhaled ten minutes ago.

Lying in the box, tucked neatly in blood-soaked plastic like some fucked-up party favor, is a hand.

An actual hand.

A severed, still-bleeding, fucking human hand.

Blood mats the gloves still half-pulled over the wrist, staining the inside of the box in thick, rust-red pools.

I drop the knife and it clatters to the floor as a strangled noise claws up my throat.

The box tips over. The hand thumps onto the carpet, splattering little wet drops across the dirty fibers.

I stumble back so fast my knees buckle, and I crash to the floor on my ass, pain barely registering through the pure, raw what-the-fuck screaming inside my skull.

For one perfect, still second, my brain blanks out.

Total white noise.

No thoughts, no survival instincts, no nothing.

Then everything hits at once.

“Nope. No, no, no, no, no,” I gasp, scrambling backward on my hands like a crab on crack, my spine slamming into the cabinets.

I can smell the blood now. Coppery, thick, clinging to the back of my throat.

It smells like death. It smells like him.

A scream claws up my throat, but nothing comes out.

Just a dry, ragged rasp as my vision blurs and my heart tries to punch its way out of my chest.

What the actual fuck do I do?

Do I call the cops?

Move countries?

Fake my death and become a goat farmer in the Alps?

I shove a trembling hand through my hair, biting down hard enough on my lip to taste blood.

Think, Eris. Think.

This wasn’t meant for you. This was meant for him.

Tall, dark, and serial-killer neighbor from hell.

And now you’ve got his goddamn evidence sitting in your kitchen, bleeding all over your shitty floor.

Perfect. Fucking perfect.

The box rocks again, and something else slides out —A second glove. Soaked, sticky, bright red.

That's it. That's the moment my brain finally shatters.

I lurch up, almost falling again, staring at the carnage like it might sprout legs and chase me.

What the hell have I gotten myself into? Who . . . is that man next door?

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.