Dean looked up from his meal. He didn’t say anything.
“Everything – literally everything – I put into the storage room, you moved. Why? I didn’t do everything ‘right’?” She dramatically put up air quotes. If he knew what they meant, he didn’t give any indication.
“They weren’t in the right spots,” Dean said it simply, as if it was the most obvious statement in the world.
“The right spots? The right spots?? The oatmeal was there for a reason. So we could get it easily in the morning, since that’s what our morning meal is going to consist of. Now, it’s all the way in the back. To get to it, I’m going to have to climb over the generator, which you also moved, every morning. The medical kits, which were out of the way, are now closer to the door than most of our food. It doesn’t make any sense!”
“It makes sense to me!” Dean growled.
“Well, it doesn’t make any sense to a normal person!” Gina yelled. After she said it, she immediately regretted it. She could tell that it stung Dean, even if he didn’t say anything. There had been no reason to blow up on him like that. Maybe isolation was taking its toll on her more than she thought.
He got up out of his seat and tossed the meal pack down the garbage chute. He walked up close to her and said, “My bunker. My rules.”
He went back to his room. Gina made herself a bowl of microwaved spaghetti, pilfered from her own pantry. She wouldn’t give in and eat any of Dean’s food. He might freak out that she’d shifted another can to the side, so she decided she would stick with her own food as long as she could.
That man!
After she had eaten and washed the dishes, she made her way back to her new room. She stopped at Dean’s room and peered in. He was lying in bed, for the first time that she had seen, with a book in his hand. For all of his brutishness, he had plenty of books to read.
“I’m sorry, Dean. Goodnight.”
He grunted at her. Gina rolled her eyes and went off to her room.
*
Gina awoke to another loud siren noise filling her head. The noise was similar to what she had heard in the hospital, yet it seemed louder than it had then. She sat up quickly, throwing the covers off of her. Where was she? Then she remembered that she was laying in her own bed, in her own room, in Dean’s bunker. Petey was jumping up and down at the side of the bed, barking loudly.
The lights were flashing, going from their regular dim glow to a sickly, red color. What was going on? Was it another bombing?
Soon she was stumbling out of the bed, disoriented, her heart pounding in her chest. Could this bunker survive a direct hit? Would they survive a direct hit? She didn’t think so.
The hallway was exactly the same as her room: the siren was deafening and the lights were blinding. She stumbled down the hall, barely registering what was going on. Dean wasn’t in his room, so she ran towards the end of the hallway.
The lights were off - if she could even tell in all the flashing, anyway - in the kitchen and bathroom. But she noticed the new generator/storeroom was lit up like a Christmas tree. What was he doing in there with the lights on? Especially now?
As she neared the storeroom, she started to smell smoke. Smoke? Oh, no. She reached the doorway, feeling an intense wave of heat wash over her body: the storeroom was engulfed in flames. Boxes of food, medical supplies, all of her stuff that had been moved into the room, was going up in flames.
“Dean!” Gina screamed, looking into the smoky room. Dean was on his knees, a fire extinguisher in his hands, spraying it everywhere, but to no avail. Wherever he aimed the extinguisher, the flames would die, but roar up again in another part of the room. “Dean!”
He heard her the second time, the roar of the flames drowning out even the siren blare. “Under the sink!” Then he was turning back towards the blaze, doing his best to keep it at bay.
Gina turned and ran as fast as she could on her injured leg. Dropping to her knees in front of the sink, she ripped open the cabinet and started rummaging inside of it, unsure of what she was even looking for. There, at the back: another fire extinguisher. She grabbed it and sprinted back to the storeroom, heedless of the pain.
She started dousing the flames closest to Dean immediately, keeping him from being roasted alive. She could see that his skin was already burnt and his hair was smoking. Still, he was spraying the flames, trying to save as much food and supplies as he could.
“Dean! Get back, it’s not worth it!” she screamed at him. He looked at her, his eyes wide with panic, as if he was weighing up the options here, but then he was retreating. She covered him with foam, knowing she shouldn’t but needing to douse the flames, and then she turned back towards the fire. He was gone from her side, then he was back, two more extinguishers in his hands.
Gina wasn’t sure if they would be able to put the flames out, especially with how light her extinguisher was getting. When it was empty, she grabbed the other, and together, they worked on the flames until they were out. She wasn’t sure how long it had taken, but it was done, and they were alive.
The same couldn’t be said for anything in the storeroom, however. All of the extra food, medical supplies, and tools were a ruined mass of black ash. That was the least of their worries, though. The spare generator was done for, the hot water heater was a melted chunk of metal, and all of the other boxes were ruined beyond repair. Dean dropped the extinguisher and slid down the wall, his hands over his eyes.
He looked like he was crying. Gina found herself crouching next to him, grabbing his hand. He didn’t even acknowledge her. “Shit,” was all he said.
“Dean, it’s okay,” she told him. She knew that was an outright lie. It wasn’t okay in the slightest. They’d lost probably 90 percent of their food and nearly all of their medical supplies, with the exception of what they still had in the bedroom from when they’d taken care of Gina’s gunshot wound. Most extra clothes were gone, as were the tools.
But none of that mattered at all when compared to all of the vital systems that had been ruined. Gina didn’t know a lot about any of the mechanical workings of the bunker, but she knew enough to know that this place was probably close to useless now.
“I shouldn’t have put everything in the same room,” he said. Gina squeezed his hand. It was a simple mistake. He couldn’t have predicted a fire would take out everything at once.
“That’s the most you’ve said to me since you took me in,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. Dean looked up, his eyes wet, and he gave her a sad smile. It was something, at least.
“Let’s get you to the kitchen,” Gina said, helping him up. He reluctantly let himself be pulled to his feet and lead down the hallway. Petey, for once, was silent and stayed out of their way. Once back in the kitchen, Gina lowered him into a chair. Dean deflated.
She turned towards the kitchen and started surveying their stock. What had happened had shortened their supplies from three years to less than three months. Maybe not even that. Shit was right.
“What do we do, Dean?” she asked, but he didn’t answer. Gina pulled a chair up next to him and grabbed his face in her hands. He looked absently at her face. “Dean. This is serious.”
He didn’t answer. Without even thinking, she reached a hand back and brought it across his face, hard. She felt her hand sting at the impact and suddenly Dean was up, anger coloring his face. The chair was thrown back with ease. He grabbed her by her wrist and pulled her up, dropping her on the table. His golden eyes shone with fury.
“This is all your fault!” he yelled. Gina’s mouth gaped open. What? How could he say that? “I should never have moved all of that stuff into the room to please you!”
“Don’t try to put that on me!” she shot back. She knew he was angry, lashing out. But hearing him say it still hurt. “I had nothing to do with that!”
Dean sat back in the chair heavily, resigned to his fate.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. The anger drained from his face as he thought.
Gina hoped that it would fade away completely soon so he could focus on what they were going to do to survive.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Gina told him. She had to snap him out of this funk. “Dean. What are we going to do?”
“I… don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You never had a backup plan in place?”
“No. Not with a bunker failure this catastrophic.”
“We have to figure this out, Dean. Things are bad.”
Gina looked up at the ceiling: smoke was floating at the top of the room. Soon, the air would be too toxic and smoky to breathe safely.
“Okay, Dean. First thing’s first: what do we do about the smoke?”
“The air system should take care of it.”
“Should,” Gina repeated. “What’s that mean?”
“There’s an air filter that cycles out all of the toxins: smoke, mold spores, carbon dioxide.”
“Let’s go take a look at it and make sure it’s working,” Gina said. She didn’t know much about that, but she had to get Dean back on track. She had to get him working; had to get him focused on the thing he did best: surviving.
Together, the two of them went into the generator room. Dean stepped around the still hot masses of melting supplies and metal. The filter system was built into the far wall. He reached out hesitantly, making sure that it wasn’t too hot to touch, and opened it up. He poked around for a few moments, then replaced the cover without a word.
“What, Dean?”
“The filter itself is in good enough shape. A bit burnt and melted, but it’ll do fine,” he said, but he didn’t seem happy about it.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The filter itself is fine. But the replacement air filters burnt up in the fire.”
“And what’s that mean?”
“It means we have to leave, and soon. The filter can handle most of the smoke, but after that, we won’t have any clean air afterwards.”
Gina leaned against a wall and thought. “Could we just open the door? Get some fresh air in here?”
Dean shrugged. “Yeah, if it’s safe out there. But that defeats the whole idea of a sealed bunker.”
“Would you rather be dead in here, or alive out there?”
Dean didn’t answer.
“Okay, let’s check the food situation,” Gina offered. Dean went into the kitchen and started taking supply counts. There truly wasn’t much left – a lot of meal packs that Gina didn’t relish eating. But they would have no choice soon. Their hand had been forced.
“We have enough for two weeks between the two of us,” Dean said. He didn’t say it with any kind of anger, or conviction; just simple truth. “Then we’ll starve.”
“That’s not going to happen, Dean,” she told him. “I’m sorry that this happened to you. I’m sorry that I was forced onto you like this. But we have got to figure out what our next move is. I don’t intend to die in here and I don’t intend to die out there,” she continued, motioning towards the front door. “But I’ll need your help.”
“I don’t know,” Dean said, and she knew he meant it. He hesitated. “I don’t know much else besides this.”
“I won’t survive out there, Dean. Not alone. And you won’t survive in here for much longer. We need each other, whether you like it or not.”
He nodded slowly. “It makes sense.”
“Great. Then let’s get some rest and we’ll figure out our plan when we wake up in the morning.”
*
Dean was back in his chair, unable to sleep. Before he’d retired to his room, he’d peeked in on Gina. Somehow, despite the fire and everything going to hell, she was able to get back to sleep almost immediately. He didn’t know how she did it. He wished he could.
Things were bad. There weren’t a lot of options left.
It was true that they could open a door, if the outside air was clean. But what they couldn’t get more of was clean water. When the fire had raged out of control, it had ruined the water purifiers, too. And he knew this area: there wasn’t a clean stream within two miles. Two miles was just too far away to transport water back and forth, especially the amount they would need to keep the bunker operational. And definitely not with her injured leg.
After Gina had gone to sleep, Dean had checked the water supply. It would be empty within three days, no matter how much they rationed it. They had three days and then they would have to leave. There was no other choice.
He slammed his hand on the table, not caring if he woke Gina. He felt irrational anger towards her: he had gone out of his way to conform to her needs, to make her comfortable here. What he had done - putting all of his vital supplies in one area - was a rookie mistake. His grandfather would have never forgiven him. That thought stung.
He never should have tried to help her. Maybe he should have left her in her car. Or he should have forced her out when she could walk. He never should have done what he did.
And the worst part of it all? She had been right. He knew what had started the fire: it was that damn rolling generator he had pushed to the back. He had pushed it too close to some of the pipes and hot water heater. The pilot light had lit the gasoline in the generator on fire. It had exploded like a bomb.
It was his fault, of course, but he couldn’t help but feel like it was also Gina’s, in a way. Because of her, he’d put things in that room. Because of where she had placed the generator in the first place, he had felt the need to move it more to his liking. And he had been wrong. Still, he blamed her. He blamed himself. He slammed his hand on the table again, sleep eluding him.
*
“So. What supplies do we have left?”
Dean sat in the chair, silent. He was still feeling anger towards Gina. He knew it wasn’t fair, but he couldn’t help it. His conversation skills were lacking, he knew, and so was his ability to deal with everyone else. He was having trouble accepting the blame lay with him, even though he knew it was true.
“Dean. What’s your problem?”
He didn’t answer at first. He didn’t know how he could tell her that it was her fault, when it so clearly wasn’t. Maybe the problem was that he couldn’t admit he was wrong.
“You still blame me for this,” Gina said. She sat her clipboard down on the table. Dean looked up in surprise. How had she known? “You’re not real good at hiding your feelings, either.”
“I let you cloud my judgment.”
Gina’s laugh was harsh and bitter. “Think what you want, Dean. I don’t care, anymore. I’m interested in surviving, and if you’re not going to help, then get out of the way. Blame me, don’t blame me. It’s all the same to me.”
Some of the anger Dean was feeling faded. She was right. He started looking everything over. They had moved all of the surviving food, water, and supplies into the bedroom. It was a pretty meager assortment.
Gina paced around the room, picking up the clipboard. She was all business now. Did it really not bother her, what he’d said?
“Okay,” Dean started. Where to begin? “Thirty four meal packs. A dozen boxes of ration bars. About fifteen cans of assorted fruits.”
“About?” Gina asked. “How many, exactly?”
Dean counted them out. “Thirteen. Four peaches, eight cans of fruit cocktail, and a can of pineapple chunks.”
“Any other food?”
MUNDO (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 2) Page 62
