I do not own Vampire Academy

CHAPTER ONE: BEGINNINGS

Prologue

"Who's that?"

Stan looked up at the new operative's question to find him looking across the room. Striding confidently through Section in his customary black attire was Dimitri, on his way up to the perch to meet with Alberta. He turned back to the inquisitive field ops and replied: "That's Dimitri."

He laid down the gear he had been gathering and leaned in fixing a stern look of warning at the new guy: "You do not want to get in his way."

"Why's that?"

"He's someone you don't want to mess with."

The guy looked up at the perch where Alberta and Dimitri were facing down to the Common area, calmly discussing something. He turned back to Stan and responded: "So he's the top dog around here huh?"

"There are 3 general rules in Section: failure is not an option, you do your job, and you don't get on Dimitri's bad side. You follow those rules; you just might survive your first year out of training."

At the questioning look on the guy's face, Stan took it easy on him and explained the lay of the land. "If you complete your mission, you'll satisfy Alberta. If you do your job, Avery won't take a closer look at you. If you stay on Dimitri's good side, you might be able to survive your next mission."

"So Dimitri leads the mission?"

"He leads them, perform tactical oversights, create profiles, assign the teams, you name it he does it."

"When does he sleep?"

Stan was starting to like this new field op. He teased back: "Who says he does?"

The guy starts laughing in response, drawing several startled glances from fellow operatives. He choked back his laughter when he noticed Dimitri had left the perch and was walking across the room toward his office. The sound of laughter had drawn Dimitri's attention and he glanced impassively across the room before turning his attention elsewhere.

"Is he always this emotionless?"

"Pretty much."

"There had to have been a time he let his guard down."

"None that I've ever seen."

"Not even when he was a recruit himself?"

"I wouldn't know. Dimitri came to us already a full-fledged operative."

"What do you mean?"

"He came to us from another Section, Section 8 I think."

"There are other sections?"

"Of course there are. Terrorism is a global threat; we need sections to cover the world."

"When did he come over?"

"I don't remember, ages ago. Alberta and Avery had to wrestle him away from 8. They weren't too thrilled since he's the most gifted recruit that ever came through Section. From the sound of it they were grooming him for higher level positions, same as here. But what Section One wants Section One gets."

"Does he have any weaknesses?"

"Not many. You'll meet one of them; she's tall and long brown hair, a true beauty."

"She's an operative?"

"Yup. He trained her and they've been under each other's skin ever since."

"I'd like to meet her."

"Haven't you been listening to a word I'm saying? I warned you not to get on Dimitri's bad side. Well cozying up to Rose will definitely lands you smack dab on his radar and quicker than you can say suicide mission, you'd be dead."

The field op held his hand up in surrender: "Okay, okay, I get it. Don't need to keep harping on it."

Stan fixed a stern glare at him: "Good, now get out of here."

"I'm going, there I'm gone."

"Smart ass."

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