Chapter 92
Damien
Play - Digital Bath by Deftones
Beg
The soft click of the door closing echoes around the hallway as I adjust my shirt. My hand is still, and I don’t move for a second. I just want to go back in and stay there with her, making sure she’s okay, that she’s not replaying anything that happened tonight.
But I have other things to do.
Rage consumes me as I think back on the events that took place tonight. Mireya’s face covered in blood. The marks on her neck…
I don’t remember the walk or the route I took to get here but the moment I look up again I’m standing in front of the surveillance office.
The corridors are quieter now, people are probably asleep, or outside at this hour. But I need to understand why the fucking cameras were off in front of Mireya and Hayzel’s dorm.
When I reach the door and push it open, my eyes catch the low light and the screens showcasing every corridor of the academy, the entries, the classrooms…
It just confirms that it was intentional.
The man sitting in front of me looks up immediately, like he wasn’t expecting anyone this late. For a second, neither of us speaks. I just look around, trying to figure out how to not lose it and then I say, “I need access logs.”
He blinks, thrown off by the lack of context. “Sir… access logs for what exactly?”
I let the door fall shut behind me, then step further in. “The cameras outside the east students dorm,” I say.
“…Why would you need those, Mister Caldwell?”
I stop a few feet from his desk. “I need to know who turned them off.”
He shifts in his chair, uncomfortably before stuttering, “Those systems are handled internally, I—I can’t just—”
I reach for my badge, unclip it and set it down in front of him. “I’m not asking.”
His eyes drop to it, and whatever uncertainty was in his posture tightens into something else. “Oh.”
Yeah. Oh.
“So I’ll ask again,” I say, my voice lower now. “Who accessed the system tonight?”
He turns back to his screen immediately this time, fingers already moving, a little too fast, a little too eager to cooperate. “No one from our team logged any manual shutdown tonight,” he says, pulling up the records. “It would have flagged, unless—”
“Unless what.”
He swallows. “Unless it came from administrative override.”
“Meaning?”
He hesitates again, “Meaning… someone with higher clearance. Headmaster level.”
The room feels smaller all of a sudden, it’s quieter. Fucking bastard. I pick my badge back up, clipping it back into place. “Pull the exact time,” I say.
He nods quickly. “Yes, sir.”
And just like that, I already know where I’m going next.
I’m there in a few seconds. As I open the door without knocking, I hope he’s still there, probably sitting on his stupid throne he built on lies.
He is.
When my eyes meet his, I feel something burning inside me. Loathing someone this passionately is an instinct ability. You know when a person’s soul is stained by corruption the moment you meet their eyes. This man is a pure product of that, rotten to the core.
He’s behind his desk, exactly where I expect him to be. Same posture, same stillness, like nothing in this building ever reaches him unless he decides it should. That kind of control always costs something. I’m still deciding yet what he’s paying it with. His life? Blood? Or maybe, humiliation…
I close the door slowly and hear his little sigh. “Agent Caldwell,” he says.
I step forward, looking around before pulling my sleeves up. “The cameras outside the east dorm were shut off.”
He leans back slightly. “Shut off is a strong term,” he replies. “They were rerouted.”
“Rerouted to what exactly?” I ask.
“Scheduled maintenance.”
My hand tightens around my tie and I laugh. “Funny that you’re saying that after I’ve read the logs,” I say. “There was no maintenance record.”
He tilts his head, his fingers tap once against the edge of his desk. “That would depend on which system you accessed,” he replies.
I understand what he’s doing now. He’s widening the ground under the question. “Same system that logs every other feed in this building, Mister Porter.”
“You’re treating this like it’s a gap in procedure,” he says.
“It is a gap in procedure,” I answer. “Matter of fact, it’s a gap in every students’ safety.”
He leans forward now, elbows resting on the desk. “No,” he says. “It’s a controlled interruption. Those are not the same thing.”
“You’re telling me it was intentional,” I say.
“You’re focusing on the wrong conclusion,” he says. “Which tells me you’re already attached to one.”
“You’re avoiding the question, which tells me you’re the person who disabled them.”
“You’ve been present in matters outside your assignment,” he says. “Repeatedly.”
I stop listening to the framing and go back to the point.
“And you, Spencer, you’ve been getting on my fucking nerves, repeatedly too.
” A long exhale comes out of my mouth before I speak again, “The feed goes dark. At the same time something happens inside the building. Perfect timing. And knowing two of my students have been hurt during that short frame of pure dark, I have more than an excuse to fuck you up, Porter.”
He gets up, bored almost and walks toward the window.
“Timing is a dangerous thing to build certainty on,” he says.
“It encourages pattern-making where there may only be coincidence,” he laughs lightly before adding, “You’re trying to turn an operational adjustment into intent, that tells me you’ve already decided there’s a person responsible. ”
My hand moves to my tie, loosens it slightly, then tighten it around my fist as I step closer.
All I can see is the hands that marked her neck and the blood on her face. I nod once, and for a second I look at him and try to measure it. The distance, the angle, the consequence, because I want to see how far this could go if I stop holding it back.
What if I kill him now.
What if I just—
The thought doesn’t finish, it’s already settled somewhere, waiting for the right moment instead of asking for permission. And that’s exactly why I move.
My fist connects with his face in a hard motion, his head snaps to the side, and there’s a brief, cracked sound that echoes in the room.
“You keep sitting here acting like this is a misunderstanding, like I’m asking you questions because I don’t already know something’s wrong. I’m not. I’m asking because I want to see how far you’re willing to go to protect whoever did this.”
He opens his mouth, but I don’t give him the space to speak yet.
I tilt my head slightly, studying him, and hit again, on the same spot.
“You don’t turn off cameras in one specific place unless you know exactly what’s going to happen there,” I continue. “So either you did it, or you allowed it. And I don’t actually care which one it is.”
It would take nothing from me to kill him right now. I exhale slowly and let it pass because I’m not done yet. Not with him. Not with this.
“If anything happens to her again,” I add.
“I won’t be standing here asking you questions.
I won’t be standing here at all. And you’re not going to like the version of me that shows up that day.
” I adjust my sleeve slowly, calmer as if I didn’t just consider ending this in a completely different way.
“I’m going to find out what you did,” I finish, my gaze locking onto him again. “And when I do, I’ll come back and this time, finish you up.”
Then I turn and walk out.