Chapter 349: Building Blocks

Ian was fuming; when Mina had shot out of her chair and asked him what happened to his face, he felt butterflies in his stomach, thinking that she was concerned for him. He could feel his lips begin to curl, but Mina snatched the rug from under his feet by indicating that her concern was not for him, it was for Dom.

The same way Mina had hurt him, he wanted to hurt her, but she was not even fazed by his words. She barely showed any reaction at all, and instead of the gratification Ian was looking for, he ended up angering himself further.

Ian sat in his office, mildly aware that he had no right to feel the way he did toward Mina, just as she had no obligation to consider his emotions. However, his brain was working against him as he thought about all the things he did and continued to do in order to make her happy. He knew he sometimes did things she did not like, and he was trying hard to stop, but it seemed that it meant nothing to Mina.

----

Rebecca sat in Dom's room pestering him with several questions about the things he taught Mina, but the man was either lying to her or too dumb to understand what she was asking. He kept insisting that he had only taught Mina a few self-defense moves, but according to the woman herself, he was teaching her how to behave semi-normally.

"Why would she say she learned her behavior from you if she did not?" Rebecca asked, earning her a shrug from Dom. "Answer me with words," she demanded.

"Listen Doc, I don't know half of the things that go on in Mina's mind. Whatever she is learning from me is a mystery, but I can tell you that Mina spent most of her youth trying to imitate her sister. Whatever she picked up; it is way beyond your grasp. Face it Doc, Mina wins." Dom knew he was antagonizing Rebecca and that is exactly what he wanted to do. He would show her who the idiot was by using Mina as his magic weapon.

Rebecca stormed out of the ward, and straight to where she knew she would find Mina. She had been there since they argued about getting Twenty-three to a more comfortable place to sleep. She had warned Mina that the man would be violent when he awoke, but like a slap in the face, he did nothing. More than that, he even allowed Mina to hold his hand, and Twenty-three hated to be touched by anyone.

Rebecca was about to walk into the ward, when she overheard a conversation taking place between President Lee and Mina and found herself smiling at her boss's words. He had reminded Mina of her place, something Rebecca had been unable to do, because for every word she spoke, Mina had a comeback.

When Rebecca heard her boss leaving, she quickly hid herself in a nearby room, and allowed the man to pass by without knowledge of her presence. Once he was gone from sight, she stepped out of the room, and expected to find Mina broken up over the way she had been spoken to, but the woman had no emotion at all.

Rebecca did not wait for Mina to turn around and Look at her. She started to speak regarding Mina's intelligence, and the woman nodded in defeat. She admitted to having an average IQ and she confessed that her emotional intelligence was extremely high, which allowed her to change the way people viewed her. Rebecca wanted to feel validated but something about how flat Mina's words were, told her that the woman was lying.

"You're lying," Rebecca said.

"Choose to believe what you want," Mina quipped and then she changed the subject completely. "Why didn't you want twenty-three to have a phone?" Mina asked, and she was shocked by Rebecca's response.

In the past, twenty-three used a device to contact his parents, who, as instructed when they sold him, pretended not to know who he was. The slight sent the man into a manic state and he had been violent ever since.

Mina asked Rebecca if Twenty-three had received any treatment, but Rebecca explained that he was on the autism spectrum and would shut down around people without much of a cause or a trigger. They had attempted to get most of the occupants of the third level help, but the ones at the back, had either shown no response, or refused treatment all together.

Mina stared at the man who looked disheveled and unkempt. She knew it had probably been weeks since the last time he had showered, and maybe days since the last time he had eaten anything filling. She assessed the man's overall condition, and then realized she knew nothing but the man's name.

When Rebecca told Mina that Twenty-three was twenty-three-years-old, Mina shook her head in pity. The man was barely a man, but he already looked to be in his thirties. His hair was thinning, likely due to stress, and his fingernails were overgrown and jagged.

Mina asked Doctor Rebecca for a nail clipper and the woman warned Mina not to let her guard down, but as far as Mina was concerned, she was as good as dead anyway. She was not too much concerned about how she died anymore, nor was she concerned about her body being found. All Mina needed to settle was the situation between Emma and James, and whatever was going on with Dom. She owed no one anything else, and if her time to go came a little earlier than she expected, so be it.

To prepare for the unforeseen, Mina had worked with Cylus, who aided her in setting up an accident stipend for her parents, and if she were missing for more than six months the money would begin to be dished out to her parents as monthly payments. The amount was limited to just seventy percent of what she had paid, but Mina was okay with that. If her parents continued to live frugally, it could help to support them for five or six years before the money ran dry.

"I did not ask you for an opinion. I asked you for a nail trimmer. If you do not have one, I will ask someone else."

"Why do you care?" Rebecca asked, she genuinely wanted to know what pleasure Mina got from taking care of someone who did not take care of themself.

"Because he is me. He is you too, but you never learned to see it that way."

"Then teach me," Rebecca ordered, and Mina scoffed.

"Did Dom turn you down?" She mocked, and based on Rebecca's silence she knew she was right. "Lesson number one: Humility."

"What?" Rebecca asked, confused.

"It means-"

"I know what it means! But why? Why start there?"

"Because Dom won't help you unless you apologize to him, but it can be fake."

"So, all I have to do is say I am sorry?" Mina shook her head.

"Tell him what he did to make you react the way you did. Then offer a truce."

"That is not humility," Rebecca said, and indeed it was not, but just being able to admit when she was wrong was the most important lesson that Mina had learned, and for her, it was the building blocks toward learning proper communication.