The neighbor
Felix Volturi × Demetri Volturi × human mate (fem)
The air in the small apartment was heavy, charged with an electricity that had nothing to do with the approaching storm. Outside, on the balcony, the July sun was beating down hard, but the shouts coming from the building next door sliced through the domestic quiet like glass blades.
The neighbor—a man with a purple face and neck veins pulsing with futile rage—was bellowing again. "I told you to take that laundry down! It stinks! It’s a disgrace, it attracts insects!"
Felix remained motionless, leaning against the doorframe that led to the living room. He hadn't moved since the girl had gone out to try to calm her father, but his posture had changed. It was no longer the casual elegance of a hunter in waiting; it was the compressed tension of a steel spring. His eyes, usually clear and lethargic like black velvet, had taken on a glassy, almost magnetic luster. His marble face showed not a shred of human empathy; there was only a detached curiosity, the same kind an entomologist reserves for a pesky insect before crushing it.
Demetri, conversely, was a shadow within the shadows of the darkest corner of the hallway. His usual mocking expression had vanished, replaced by a smile that didn't reach his eyes. It was a predatory smile, thin as a line drawn with a scalpel. His gaze wasn't directed at the neighbor, but at the girl's racing heartbeat, a rhythm he perceived distinctly, a throb of fear that annoyed him deeply.
"I told you to close that door! It's rude, it’s... it’s an indecency!" the neighbor continued to scream, then lunged toward the girl’s father, who, with clenched fists and locked jaw, was about to climb over the railing.
"Dad, no! Stop, please!" her voice was a gasp, cracked with humiliation. "It’s not worth it, they’ll arrest you because of this idiot!"
Demetri stepped forward, his movement imperceptible, fluid as flowing mercury. He turned toward Felix, raising an eyebrow in a silent question. They didn't need to speak; the bond that tied them to the fragile creature they had chosen was a categorical imperative that transcended their nature.
"The noise is... annoying, don't you think, Felix?" Demetri's voice was a razor cutting through the silence of the room. It was low, velvety, but loaded with a promise of violence that would have made anyone’s blood run cold had they the misfortune to hear it.
Felix pushed off the doorframe, moving with a predatory grace that defied all physical laws. His gaze returned to the girl, then settled on the neighbor's rage-distorted silhouette on the balcony. There was no anger in him, only a glacial annoyance, the desire to cleanse the scene of that disturbing element.
"It is not the noise that is annoying, Demetri," Felix replied, his voice a superhuman murmur, devoid of human vibrations. "It is the insolence toward what belongs to us. No one should dare raise their voice in the presence of... of her."
Felix took a step toward the ajar door, his body seeming to absorb the ambient light. He wasn't running, but in a fraction of a second, the distance between the living room and the doorway became nothing. His gaze, fixed on the man outside, was like an electric shock. The neighbor, without understanding why, stopped abruptly; the words died in his throat as if he had swallowed ice. For an instant, the man met Felix's eyes, and what he saw in that primordial abyss was so total, so terrible in its nullity, that it forced an instinctive recoil that nearly made him stumble.
Demetri followed, his figure seeming to obscure the sun filtering through the open door. He stopped behind the girl, placing a hand on her shoulder with a possessiveness that brooked no argument. The girl's father froze, seized by a sudden shiver, a visceral reaction he couldn't explain but which forced him to let go of the parapet.
"I believe," Demetri said, addressing the girl's father with a smile that was pure, contained cruelty, "that the gentleman has exhausted his repertoire. Hasn't he, dear neighbor?"
There was no need for verbal threats. The silence that enveloped the balcony was heavy with a supernatural menace. The neighbor, pale as a sheet, didn't say another word. He went back inside, closing his own door with a speed that bordered on panic, letting silence finally reign once more.
Felix remained motionless, his gaze turned toward the interior of the apartment, toward her, as if waiting only for a nod to erase that nuisance from the world, once and for all.
"I don't care if you eat people... but if eating them means making this... thing go away," she said, gesturing toward the wall shared with the next-door apartment, "then so be it. Are years it keep going on... Why is the only idiot within ten miles living right next to us?" The girl said this as evening fell, alone with the two of them in her room.
The dim light of the room was interrupted only by the blade of light filtering from the hallway, casting long, distorted shadows on the walls. The girl was sitting on the edge of the bed, her gaze fixed against the wall that separated them from the outside world, from the noise, from the neighbor, and from the absurdity of the day.
Felix had remained in the darkest corner, arms crossed over his chest, a perfectly composed statue of granite. His pupils, black as obsidian, never left the girl's profile. Hearing those words, an imperceptible movement shook his shoulders. It wasn't distress; it was a dark form of amusement. A smile, barely hinted at, creased his perfect lips.
"Your pragmatism, my dear, is... refreshing," Felix began, his voice cold velvet that seemed to vibrate in the still air. He approached her with the fluidity of a predator preparing to pounce, stopping just inches away. "Most humans tremble at the thought of our nature. You, on the other hand, evaluate its utility as if we were talking about fixing a faucet."
Demetri, for his part, had leaned against the window frame, watching the city lights twinkling faintly in the distance. He laughed, a dry sound, devoid of any warmth, which seemed to make the glass tremble.
"Ten miles is a rather generous radius," Demetri commented, turning toward her with eyes glowing with a famished light, an unnatural reflection that made his face even sharper. "If you wish for the 'problem' to be removed, we don't need to trouble our diet. There are much more... silent methods to make a man's life unbearably difficult, or to convince him to move to the most distant and desolate place on earth."
Felix took a step forward, his towering presence obscuring the light from the bedside lamp. "But if your preference were instead to fall upon the definitive solution..." he continued, lowering his voice until it became a superhuman murmur that slid down the girl's spine, "it would be a pleasure to make the nuisance disappear. An act of courtesy, not hunger."
Demetri detached himself from the window, the movement rapid and feline. He approached her from the opposite side, completing the circle around her figure. "The world is full of idiots, it's true. But none of them have had the misfortune of attracting the attention of those who do not play by human rules," he whispered, leaning toward her ear. "Just tell me it is what you want, and that wall will return to being nothing more than a silent boundary between us and nothingness."
Felix didn't avert his gaze, waiting for confirmation, a nod, a blink that would give the signal to the predator that, for hours, had been restless under his cold skin. "Well? Must we rid you of this weight, or do you prefer we limit ourselves to a lesson he will never forget?"
"Lesson first, and then, if that doesn't work... do what you have to," she said, shrugging. The sweet, calm girl of the week before seemed to have vanished, as if the morning's episode hadn't been the only one.
The silence that followed her sentence was of a dense, almost solid quality. There was no trace of hesitation or fear in her voice; only the weariness of someone who has endured an irritating interference for too long.
Demetri was the first to react. His smile widened, becoming genuine in his predatory satisfaction. He dropped onto the edge of the bed beside her; the weight of his body—nonexistent for a human, but dense as lead—made the mattress sink. He reached out a hand, brushing her chin with his icy index finger, forcing her to look him straight in the eyes.
"A lesson," he repeated, savoring the word as if it were a fine wine. "It is fascinating to see you lose your patience. It is a new color; it suits you."
Felix, for his part, remained standing, but his expression had changed. The almost religious austerity that usually enveloped him had cracked, revealing a dark curiosity. He was no longer just the warrior following orders, but a man seeing, finally, a glimmer of the ferocity he himself knew all too well.
"A lesson," confirmed Felix, his voice vibrating like distant thunder. "Very well. It will be a lesson he remembers for the rest of his... short existence."
They exchanged a quick glance, a brief exchange of information in a language that didn't belong to this world. They didn't need elaborate plans; for them, manipulating a human's reality was little more than a magic trick.
"He won't leave his house to complain anymore," added Demetri, his tone sliding into a raspy, promising whisper. "He will learn that silence is the highest form of wisdom, especially when living next to... entities who would prefer not to be disturbed. But I warn you: once we begin to dismantle his security, there will be no return. The man who returns to look from that balcony will not be the same one who yelled at you today. He will be an empty shell, terrified of his own shadow."
Felix took a step toward the door, his broad shoulders seeming to fill the room's space. "Patience is a virtue that does not belong to us, but for you, we can display it for a few more hours. Tonight, while he sleeps, his world will begin to crumble. And if tomorrow morning I should still hear the sound of his voice..."
Felix didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. His gaze, fixed on the wall, was a promise of total oblivion.
"Consider it done," concluded Demetri, rising and reaching out a hand toward Felix. "Let us prepare the ground. We shall see if his insolence survives a night of nightmares he cannot explain."
The girl remained there, sitting in the darkness, while the two Volturi moved toward the exit with the unnatural grace of those who know exactly how to break a man without even touching him. The neighbor didn't know he had signed his own condemnation, and for the first time, the girl felt not the slightest trace of remorse.
What had happened earlier had only been the detonator; the true change had occurred within her, aware of having at her side not just companions, but two of the most feared creatures in history, ready to transform her anger into a punishment that would transcend the boundaries of reason.
