Chapter 36: Blood Bank

Dean found his way down the stairs not long after his chat with Yuki was finished. But Katherine was nowhere to be found.

He instantly looked at his phone and found through the app that was connected to his internal security system and his intranet servers that the woman had maneuvered her way to the subterranean level.

He quickly climbed down the hidden staircase that lid below and found the woman exactly where the cameras had detected her presence. She stood there in the small infirmary section, organizing medications, checking on what Dean had managed to stockpile, and taking inventory.

She didn’t even need to turn around, speaking the moment Dean approached the room.

“Don’t mind me… I’m just getting comfortable at my new workstation.”

Dean leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, shaking his head in disbelief as he stared at the woman from behind. She continued to organize medications to her preference as he spoke.

“I’m curious how you found this place? Don’t you think it’s suspicious for you to be here, without anyone alerting you to its location?”

Katherine scoffed, turning around to meet Dean’s inquisitive gaze, rolling her eyes before returning to her current task.

“Paranoia is not an attractive trait in a man. You do realize that, right? If you must know how I found this place… I was looking through your library section earlier in the day. Gray’s Anatomy? An interesting choice to conceal a hidden lever….”

Dean scoffed in disbelief.

“I suppose that’s my fault… I should have known to replace the book that hides the lever once I brought an actual trauma surgeon home.”

Katherine ceased organizing the medication, clearly satisfied with her results before walking over to Dean and reaching out to him.

“Come here and give me your arm.”

Dean’s urge to resist her command was instinctive, he tried to pull his arm away, but she fought for control of it all while smirking playfully at him at him.

“You can relax for thirty seconds, can’t you? Or are you really going to deny your doctor’s orders?”

He didn’t know why, but he relented in that moment as she rolled his sleeve up, cradling his forearm in her own, she tied a tourniquet around it and began prodding the veins. Dean instantly recognized what she was looking for, but she cut him off before he could speak.

“You have good veins… What’s your blood type?”

She untied the tourniquet and released Dean’s arm, allowing him to reach up to his neck, where he pulled out his old dog tags that were previously laying beneath his combat shirt.

“See for yourself.”

Katherine cradled the tags in her hands, running over their black, non-reflective finish.

“Dean W… O- that’s rare… Oh? That’s curious it says you’re of the Apostolic Orthodox Church? How interesting.”

Dean snatched his dog tags back from the woman’s hands and tucked them under his collar once more.

“Are we done here? So you want to collect my blood?”

Katherine pretended not to notice how defensive Dean was about his faith and instead turned around, gesturing over to the refrigeration unit.

“Not just yours… I think we need to start building a blood bank. You clearly built a storage unit for it… We’re just lacking the material. But not the manpower… I recommend you have that little girl of yours send out a notice to the community, extra rations for the families of those who donate blood. This little infirmary of yours is quite impressive. The one problem would be accurately screening for blood-borne illnesses. You can only do so much with physical and verbal examinations… If only we could go back to the hospital we might be able to.”

Katherine’s eyes lit up as she turned around to look at Dean. The man had thought through so much, clearly he should have…

Dean instantly knew what she was thinking, but was quick to shut her down.

“We can’t raid a hospital… not when we have enemies camped outside our front doors. Besides, such a task would be dangerous… I’d need to pull at least one of my fireteams of patrol to pull it off. I alone wouldn’t be enough… And I only have two snowmobiles sitting in my garage it wouldn’t be enough…”

Katherine nodded in agreement with Dean’s logic. But she instantly thought of something important.

“Yeah… but those guys camping outside your neighborhood. They have plenty of snowmobiles…. We could take theirs after you have finished dealing with them, couldn’t we?”

There was a certain logic to the woman’s words. Assuming they managed to salvage the snowmobiles intact, they could in theory send enough men over to the hospital to raid it.

But there was no point thinking about that now. Not until the enemy was dealt with.

“Let’s assume we all survive this and emerge in a scenario where we get our hands on the snowmobiles that raiders are using without any damage or sabotage. If that is the case, yes… We could lead a salvage operation to recover what you need from the hospital, assuming it’s still intact.”

Katherine sighed clearly still stuck in thought about what to do about their current shortage of medical supplies.

“For the time being… I can make do, but Dean… Your blood will be critical to the community’s survival until we secure testing kits. This is very important, and you absolutely cannot lie to me. You’re clean, right?”

Dean didn’t hesitate to answer.

“Yes… If my word doesn’t suffice, then run whatever tests you can.”

Katherine nodded, almost as if she had concluded something internally within her own mind that only she seemed to understand. She turned and headed towards the door and stopped halfway through, looking back ever so slightly.

“By the way… What does the W in your initials stand for?”

Dean looked over at the woman and sighed.

“Winters…”

Katherine smiled upon hearing it, mouthing silently as if she played the words through her own thoughts over and over again.

“Winters.” She smiled faintly. “Figures.”

She walked off without saying another word to Dean, leaving him alone with how to prepare for the Raiders and their next assault.

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