Liability

Chapter 46 - Dmitri

WARNING! This chapter contains descriptions of violence, gore and murder, also discussion of the death of an underage person as well as drug addiction and some insensitive comments about it. If these topics are triggering to you in any way, please proceed with caution.

 

Monday
September 24, 2018

Dmitri's back where one of the human traffickers managed to land a solid hit the previous night throbs with the solid pulse of his heartbeat as he listens to Principal Pratt detail the newly initiated policies of the school's Educational Board. They sound like grasping at straws while on the brink of falling into an active volcano but Dmitri cannot really find it in himself to care all that much about desperate attempts at damage control.

His patience starts wearing thin fast as the minutes pass with Pratt doing everything in her power to come across as a caring but strict leader to look better in the eye of the media that will definitely cover the story. After all the Lodge boy's death has been an ever-burning hot topic for the past 10 days. The tragedy has been splashed all over every news outlet and online platform in the States, followed by the heat of mounting anger of the public which has managed to twist the crimes of a group of degenerates into the horror story of how children all around America are buckling and trying to cope with the pressure of unreasonable expectations pushed onto them by the adults around them.

Coupled with the scandal of the drug still on the streets no matter how hard the police and Victor Martinez have been trying to get rid of it once and for all, a much juicier piece of scandal would be needed for people to turn away from the morbid excitement of pointing fingers over Chase Lodge cooling body. Dmitri is far from unaware of the absolute lack of conscience politics and business demand of those who want to win in either game but knowing about the monsters wearing benign human faces does not make the entire situation any less distasteful.

Having Goodman at his back after the way the piece of trash tried to drug him with the clear intention of assault in mind does not help either. His fingers itch to reach for one of the knives hidden on his body and slit the disgusting swine open from the navel up in front of everyone just to show them the tar he must be hiding in his veins. But he cannot go against his grandmother's direct orders again, definitely not with at least four Yuriev implants watching his every move while parading as guards hired for enforcing the new rules.

He was explicitly told in the wee hours of Saturday, after getting home from being interviewed by the police for hours, that he was to have no direct contact with Mark Goodman unless it was about the scumbag's grades or related to his studies. He was officially off the case and the only reason he had not been forced to quit was because his grandmother probably found it a fitting punishment to make him fulfill the terms of his contract despite not having a mission to complete anymore.

She went as far as putting a gag order on everyone around Dmitri and sending him out with her own people instead of his Hounds. Even Ash was banned from communicating with him in every way possible to ensure Dmitri had no information. And wasn't that a bitter pill to swallow? He had to watch as one of his best friends stole desperate glances at him from across the R&D Department while Sheila — one of Alenyka's oldest and most trusted spies when it came to the organization — kitted Dmitri out for his mission the night before.

His grandmother's actions made it plain that she did not trust him.

Maybe at one point, after it was all just a past mishap if that was even possible, he would be able to look back and accept her reasoning. A part of him probably already did even as she was ramming into him with her ruthlessly efficient words, opening up a new wound with each one leaving her mouth, but mostly he felt betrayed and discarded and those feelings refused to leave him even in the light of the new day.