MARS (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 1)

by Becca Fanning

  “I hope you’re right,” Gina said. Dean sounded confident when he said that, but Gina didn’t feel the same confidence that he did. They had barely been in North Williamstown for 30 minutes before they’d had a gunfight with some despicable people.

  That gang. She shuddered. All things considered, the fight had gone as well as it could have. But how long would their luck last? Gina didn’t think their next encounter with these men would go as smoothly as this one had.

  They had one gun, no knives, no food, and no idea where they were really going. She was injured, though her ankle wasn’t giving her as many problems as it had. And now, they were driving a truck through a dangerous city, loaded down with the men who had tried to kill them, and who undoubtedly had friends who would start looking for them.

  They drove for a couple of minutes through the neighborhood, making their way towards the town proper. Dean turned down a side street and came to a screeching halt. Gina felt herself flung forward in the seat and Petey yelped in surprise as he landed on the floor mat.

  “Dean?” Gina asked, looking over at him. “What’s wrong?”

  Then she turned and looked towards the front of the truck. Things had just gotten even worse.

  “Gina, get down,” Dean growled. She didn’t obey. Looking in front of her, Gina saw a scene of carnage. Bodies were strewn across the street, four in all, and above them, stood two men and a woman.

  “Hold on,” Dean ordered her.

  “Wait!” the woman screamed. She sprinted towards the truck, arms up, tears streaming down her face. “Please, you have to help us!”

  Dean started to inch forward, but Gina yelled, “Stop!”

  Dean shot her a glare. “It’s a trap.”

  “How do you know?” Gina asked. Dean shrugged. “Something could have happened to them.”

  Dean wasn’t happy as he grabbed the rifle, getting out of the truck and aiming it at the woman who was approaching his driver’s side window. He rolled the window down with one hand, bracing the rifle on it. Gina could tell it was for two reasons: the first was to keep the woman back and give him some cover. The second was to keep her away from the back of the truck.

  “Our friends,” the woman started, her breaths hitching in sobs. She could hardly talk, tears were still rolling down her cheeks and snot was pouring out of her nose. “Something happened to them. They just dropped a few hours ago. Please, help us!”

  Dropped? Gina’s warning sirens immediately went off. Was this some kind of virus? She wouldn’t be surprised. This was the perfect time for new viruses to sprout up, born out of the death and dirt of the new world. A new virus could even be the reason the bombs went off in the first place. Containment.

  “Here, Dean, put this on,” Gina said, pulling a mask out of their duffle bag. She donned the second one. They were the only two that had survived the fire, safe in their single medical kit. She grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and pulled those on, as well.

  Dean eyed the mask, but took it and slipped it over his face, never taking his eyes off of the woman.

  “We’re going to take a look. I’m a doctor,” Gina said, getting out of the truck. Dean gestured with the rifle and the woman backed off, going towards her friends. Gina approached, looking at them first. They were dirty, their jeans ripped, but they didn’t appear to be armed.

  “Hands up,” Dean ordered. The men glared at him and didn’t comply.

  “Why? So you can shoot us?” one spat.

  “Hands up, or I kill you all and we leave now. I’ve survived too long out here to take any chances with people like you.”

  Gina wanted to tell him to calm down, but what he was saying was perfectly reasonable. She looked over at him. The first man nodded and put his hands behind his head. The second followed suit, then the woman.

  “If they make any move, any at all, shoot them,” Dean told her and handed her the rifle. Gina nodded. She knew she could do that now. Raising the rifle, she watched as Dean patted down the three. When he was satisfied, he took a step backwards and took the rifle back from Gina. “Okay, they’re clean. Check it out.”

  Gina, feeling safe, went over to the bodies on the ground. Three were men and the last was a woman.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said. Her knees screamed in protest, kneeling in the street, but at least she was off of her ankle.

  “We were out looking for supplies,” the woman said, kneeling down beside her. “They hadn’t been feeling good lately. And then they all just collapsed. We tried helping them…but…”

  She was crying again. Gina tuned her out for a few moments, checking one of the men first. She pulled up his shirt. There were no wounds that would indicate a bullet wound or stabbing. He was wearing some ratty athletic shorts, one of the reasons she had chosen this man, so checking his legs was easy. There was nothing there to indicate any foul play, either.

  “Help me roll him over,” Gina said. The woman managed to help, even through her sobs.

  His back was the same case as the front. There was nothing there to indicate he’d been murdered. She checked the back of his head and his skull. There was no sign of blunt force trauma.

  Had this man really died of a virus? Was there a new plague? What was the transmission vector? Airborne? If so, were she and Dean already exposed? Was it transported in the water supply? Maybe some type of animal?

  Or maybe it was just some rotten food harboring some bacteria. The possibilities could be endless, and without a proper lab and testing equipment, she wasn’t sure if she could reach a conclusion.

  “Did they eat anything specific?” she asked.

  One of the men spoke up behind her, “We’ve been eating from the same supply of canned vegetables.”

  Gina considered it. It was technically possible that they had eaten some bad canned food, but extremely unlikely.

  “Do you think that could be it? Are we safe?” the woman asked. Her tears had mostly stopped, but she still sniffled every other word.

  “I don’t know,” Gina said. She moved towards the woman lying dead on the ground. She inspected her, too. It was the same case as the first man. She heard footsteps coming up behind her and glanced back, seeing Dean come close.

  “Give us a second,” he ordered the woman. She heard the tone in his voice and didn’t argue, scrambling off to join her friends. “Something isn’t adding up.”

  Gina looked down at the people on the ground: ratty and torn clothing, to be expected from people in this town. Malnourished bodies.

  She shook her head. Something was nagging at her. Dean was right: something wasn’t adding up.

  She turned to the others and looked them over. Their clothes were ratty, too. And dirty. Extremely dirty, like they’d been living under a bridge. She looked back at those on the ground.

  How had she missed it before?

  The four on the ground had torn up clothes, but they were far from dirty. For the most part, they were clean. They were a stark contrast to the other three. It didn’t look like they’d been together. They looked like two separate sets of people. Still, it didn’t prove anything.

  For one, there were no murder weapons. It was possible someone had fled with the weapons, but what reason would they have for that? She doubted they were expecting a truck to roll up and catch them in the act.

  Plus, that woman was torn up. Gina turned to her. She saw the woman flash one of the men a smile. Was it all an act?

  “What killed them?” one of the men asked, coming close behind them. Dean turned and aimed the rifle in his general direction.

  “I don’t know,” Gina said. It was true, she couldn’t figure it out. She felt around the woman’s throat, checking for inflamed nodes. Nothing. She trailed her finger down the woman’s neck, baffled, and then something came to her.

  She turned back, leaning close and inspecting the neck, and there it was. Just the slightest hint of bruising, still forming. Had these people been strangled? She suspected in a short while, the bruises w
ould be evident.

  She crawled over to another man. There was some redness on his neck, and just by his Adam’s apple, more bruising. The next man had even more bruising, though unless you were trained for it, Gina didn’t think anyone would notice this early.

  These four had been strangled. She was kneeling on the ground, and turned around, face level with the man’s hips. Holding up his baggy jeans was a thick, black belt. She looked past him, the other two had belts, as well. So they did have weapons, after all.

  “I think I have an idea of what killed them,” Gina announced, getting up. The three instantly became agitated.

  “What?” the closest asked. He took a few hesitant steps towards her, trying to play it off like he was inspecting the bodies.

  “It looks like a severe strain of the flu,” she lied. It was a flimsy excuse at best, but she didn’t think these people would argue.

  “Oh, okay,” the man said.

  “Let me get a kit out of the truck and we’ll test one of them,” Gina said. She started moving off, walking past Dean, and whispered, “Let’s go.”

  Dean heard her and took a couple of steps back. The three started to close in, coming closer than Gina felt comfortable. She climbed into the cab, faking digging through a bag, waiting for Dean. Petey was looking anxious next to her.

  “What’s taking so long?” the woman asked. All of her sadness, all of her tears, were gone. Dean was still making his way back to the truck, looking as calm as possible.

  “Need help finding it?” he asked, coming around to the driver’s side.

  Gina looked up, met the woman’s face with her own uneasy expression, and then quickly looked away again. She’d never been a good liar..

  “She knows!” the woman shrieked, her voice lined with pure panic.

  The two men immediately charged forward. Gina heard Dean’s rifle go off, and then one of the men was sprinting towards Gina’s door. She slammed the lock down. Petey was barking.

  Gina looked towards Dean, seeing him wrestling with one of the men. “Dean! Climb in!” she screamed. She slid into the driver’s seat, and fired up the truck just as the man at the passenger’s side shattered the window. Petey lashed out, biting his hand, buying them a few moments.

  Dean looked at her out of the corner of his eye, saw she was ready to go, and headbutted the guy in the face. He screamed in pain, collapsing to the ground, his hands grabbing onto the rifle and pulling it to the ground as he fell. Dean grabbed it back, tossed it in the bed, and piled in.

  Gina gunned it. The woman was directly in front of her, screaming, trying to block the road. Gina closed her eyes and felt a thud as she hit the woman, then she opened them and was tearing away. Next to her, the last man was still holding onto the window, being dragged around with them. Petey was biting the man’s fingers over and over: he was bleeding everywhere, but he wouldn’t relent.

  Then Dean came to the side and with one heavy kick, the man released his hold and tumbled away, rolling in the road. Dean climbed through the window as the truck was still moving.

  “Good job,” he told her. Then he ruffled Petey’s fur. “Good job, Petey.”

  “They strangled them. With their belts,” Gina explained. “We should never have stopped.”

  “We never could have known,” Dean said.

  “I should have listened to you. That’s what I said I would do.”

  “Not everyone is bad. Plus, we had to know. What if there was some kind of disease out there? You had to check. Had to be sure.”

  Gina nodded. His reasoning was true. Still. She had put them in a bad situation. She would never do that again.

  *

  Gina wasn’t sure how long they’d driven for. It was way longer than they should have, but Dean didn’t see the need to stop her. Everyone could be watching them now, but it didn’t matter. They had to get away from those people.

  It was blind luck that carried them right past the post office downtown, and therefore also the warehouse where they would find all of the food they needed. By now, it was growing dark, so they stashed the truck a couple of blocks away and made their way to the post office to get some sleep.

  The plan was to wake up early, grab as much food as they could carry, and take it back to the truck. If it was still there, great, if not, then they would make their way out on foot. But right now, it was too dark to do any good. Gina didn’t want to risk turning the headlights on, especially now that all of the power was out. If anyone was looking for them, they would be drawn to them like moths to a flame.

  Dean managed to bust open the back door of the post office. Old mail delivery trucks sat abandoned out back, their tires slashed and the windows busted out. Dean took a few moments to scout the post office: his nose and eyes could detect no one. Upon further inspection, even the front door was locked and unbroken. Obviously, when things had gone bad in North Williamstown, no one had seen it necessary to go into the post office. It was a small blessing.

  The post office itself was small, most of the floor space devoted to the back of the post office, where they did most of their sorting and packaging shipments. The front area was small. There were some lockboxes for people to pick up their mail, a bulletin board, and a small trash can. Luckily, no one would be looking for them in here.

  “It’s not too bad,” Gina said, laying out their blankets.

  Dean grunted, but then he said, “Yeah, you’re right. This place is sort of cozy.”

  Gina made herself as comfortable as possible. The floor was hard, but the blankets helped, some, and Dean and Petey’s presence helped considerably. Dean pulled out their last two meal packs and handed one to Gina. Then he grabbed a can of Petey’s food and opened it up for him. Petey still had stacks of food left. The perks of being a dog, Gina thought.

  They ate in silence and darkness, their only source of light the moon streaming in through a tall window. Gina would have loved some more light, but she knew the risk of attracting more people to their position. This was undoubtedly the most dangerous part of their journey so far.

  She just hoped North Williamstown wouldn’t be their tomb, like it had been for so many others. They sat and talked in low tones for a good while, enjoying each other’s company.

  Eventually, Dean said, “We’d probably better get some rest soon. We have an early morning. If we’re lucky, we’ll be up and out of here before anyone else in this damn town even wakes up.”

  “Tomorrow is going to be dangerous, Dean.”

  “I know.” He said it simply, as was his way. If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. Gina, on the other hand, was almost sick with nervousness.

  “This town is dangerous. I can’t wait to get out of here and hit the road,” Gina said. “My ankle is even doing better. Soon, we’ll be crushing miles out in the woods again.”

  Dean’s laugh was low. “I hope so.”

  There was something in his voice, some…sadness that Gina picked up. She hadn’t told him that she was planning on staying in that community, but did he know, somehow? She knew that Dean was good at picking up on stuff like that.

  She sighed. Those thoughts made her sad, too, but she couldn’t just run off to the woods with Dean and Petey. She was a doctor. It was her duty to help those that couldn’t help themselves. She could potentially be the only doctor in the community altogether. She could save lives. Restore humanity. Save the world.

  Would Dean understand that? She thought so. He would understand it, but he wouldn’t be happy with it. She didn’t blame him. There was something between them, some bond that had formed ever since he pulled her out of her mangled car and saved her life. It was something she could never repay.