"How the fuck do you intend to help me, Dimitri?" It doesn't manage to keep the bite out of those words, not like it should, when someone's offering help.

But it doesn't believe in being helped, in getting help. In help being something it's allowed to accept. In some ways, it's the snapping jaws of a coyote with its leg caught in a trap. It would rather gnaw its own leg off than allow gentle hands to come remove the trap.