Fallout || Stranger Things [2]

twenty-seven || bombs and blankets

Just give me time.

     Tatum's pricked skin on the back of her neck settled as she sat at the very end of the meeting table, her eyes focusing back in on Owens at the opposite end as she pushed her spies back to Hawkins.

     Moments after Tatum's declaration of explosive proportions, the five other survivors had been summoned from the bunks and were forced to rally around the table. Dr. Owens and Captain Hones stuck to the front, the latter leaned against the side wall while Owens paced anxiously as the last of the survivors settled into their seats.

     With El's check in, she knew her secret would get out, but the weight it lifted off her shoulders was bliss.

     Bliss that she would have to enjoy later.

     Orlo yawned, cutting the silence in the room that had yet to be broken as he stretched in his seat. "Why are we here again? I was having lovely dreams of the desert."

     Owens' pacing slowed as he turned to face the table, his gaze going directly to Tatum. "Do you want to repeat what you ran in here to tell me?"

     Tate sighed, eyes stuck to Owens despite her statement being meant for the others. "We need to blow up the prison."

     Hopper's brows raised as he lit a cigarette, pleasantly surprised by waking up to them only minutes before. "Blow it up?"

     "Good," said Martyn, his good arm tucked under his sling to preserve warmth.

     Aella winced. "That seems a bit much."

     "Look," Tatum said, pulling the room's attention. "I was watching the temperature radar over the peninsula. There were pockets of warmth, but the ground's frozen. We know that. We felt it every day." She tapped an absent finger on the table. "But it won't stay that way."

     Martyn's brows furrowed. "What does the ground matter?"

     "Everything," Owens said, palms rested forward on the table as his eyes panned the survivors. "When the ground thaws even just enough, those dogs will start to dig. They'll dig until they find food, until they make their way to the surface."

     "Then the Russians can deal with it," Hopper countered, cigarette propped in the corner of his mouth.

     "No," Tate cut in. "A very specific sector of their government did this to us, not the whole country. We can't let them out, period." She struggled to make eye contact with anyone, preferring the corkboard images or her own fingers. "I know I did this and it was a choice I made, so you either need to take me back to send them home or-"

     "No way in hell," Hopper said firmly. "No one is going back."

     Tatum chewed the inside of her lip as she looked to Owens. "Sending a team in will only add to the body count, Doc," she told him. "Spring is coming. They'll dig to warmer areas. They'll be top side by summer."

     "But dropping a bomb on the USSR?" Owens asked, his breath airy as he ran a hand along the back of his neck, face contorted.

     "They'll grow once they start to eat," Tate reminded dismally. "They won't just be dogs. They'll be demogorgons, fully grown."

     As Owen's expression slipped to fear, Captain Hones' grew sharper.

     "How many of them?"

     Tatum hesitated, lips parted for just a moment before she spoke. "About a dozen."

     Hones seethed into a scoff. "Only a child could make a mistake like this."