Chapter 354: Still Off Limits

Ian was exhausted, it had been years since he had forced his body to go beyond its limit, and he realized that he was out of shape for someone who could encounter any situation at any time. What bothered him most was not that he was tired, it was that Mina was keeping pace with him.

As far as Ian knew, the girl had not been trained in anything, yet somehow, she managed to keep her feet moving despite the cold settling in over them like an icy blanket. He distracted himself by watching her walk. He wondered how Mina built her endurance, and how much stronger, or even smarter she could have been if she had the proper training, or even the proper nutrition growing up.

When they had been drugged, Ian had not asked Mina many things about how she grew up. He did ask about her life and family, but she had only mentioned good things. It was through her conversations with other people that Ian realized that Mina's life was not as happy as she remembered it to be.

Her father worked so many hours that it caused her parents to argue, he was constantly loaning money to his employer, which would then take away from the families living budget, and Mina had to get a job to help her family make ends meet, but it did not end there.

Mina had learned to dabble in the stock market early and she was able to build a decent amount of money using her father's name. When he found out about the hobby, he encouraged Mina to keep at it, but shortly thereafter, he would drain the account to use elsewhere.

Because Ian was a third party listening in on Mina's conversations, he was not able to figure out where her father had spent his daughter's earnings, and he wanted to believe that whatever it was must have benefit the whole family, but some part of him told him that the money went into the man's habitual helping.

Ian looked up from Mina's back and noticed that they were approaching his facility. Although the distance could be measured in feet, it seemed miles away from where he stood, and he could not wait to get out of his cold and sticky clothing and wrap himself into something clean and warm.

Ian was not a fussy person, but he believed that he had earned the right to a certain amount of comfort after walking hours in the cold. Yet, in some sort of warped personification of his real-life struggle: he was following behind Mina, unwilling to look away, while she kept moving forward without so much as glancing back.

When the pair finally made it to the side gate of the facility, Mina turned back to him and smiled. It was so bright and cheerful that he wondered if she was tired at all. He started to smile back at her, wanting to put on a brave face as well, but Mina's eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed onto the ground before Ian could catch her.

Ian was tired and his fingers had gone numb from the cold, but he managed to pull all his strength together to lift Mina off the ground enough to pull her along. She was not a heavy woman, in fact she was on the smaller side, but Ian was having a tough time getting a proper grip on her.

When Ian made it in front of the facility, he too collapsed onto the ground and pulled Mina's body closer into his, just in case for whatever reason no one looked at the camera's after lockdown hours. If that were to happen and he survived, that person would be dead, so Ian hoped for the sake of the men inside, that it would not.

Ian pulled his tags out from his shirt and dangled them in the air, hoping that the small chip that was implanted inside of them was doing its job and alerting the men inside that their boss was nearby. It appeared that it was, because just a few short Minutes later, the doors opened, and armed men and women stood ready to eliminate whatever threat they believed their boss had been running from.

From the back of the crowd, Doctor Witt pushed his way forward and looked as though his most precious experiment had been damaged. He gingerly scooped Mina up and laid her on a stretcher that two other men were carrying.

"She is still off limits," Ian forced out with the last of his strength, and two additional men came to help him stand.

"I know, I know; but I haven't had a chance to study her yet. I'll be so angry if she dies." Doctor Witt was not a man known for his sensitivity, but at that moment Ian wished that he could have practiced a little courtesy.

"No male physicians. Have your sister tend to her, if you have to remove her clothing, make sure someone is with her to explain why as soon as she wakes up." Dr. Witt nodded, and snapped his fingers. The two men who were carrying Mina brought her deeper into the facility and Ian allowed himself to relax.

"What happened sir?" asked one of the men supporting him, and Ian felt his response was too silly to give, so he clipped it with a common cliché.

"It's a long story."

----

After a long and annoying day of filming, Jay was eager to go home and go to bed. She and Chris exchanged jokes back and forth to pass the time as they packed, and she casually threw out her sister's name as a potential girlfriend. She could hear Chris pause in his actions, and she turned to apologize, thinking that he may have been in a relationship and did not know how to answer.

"I'm sorry. You are just an extremely nice guy and my sister could use someone like you." Jay flashed an embarrassed smile.

"I'm sure your sister is great," Chris said, "but she isn't my type." Jay's brow furrowed and then arched as understanding came over her.

"I am so sorry," she said, beside herself.

"For what?" Chris asked. "Just don't tell anyone. It can be hard for people like me." Jay nodded vigorously. She had spoken to Olivia and Jessica about the country's views on homosexuality many times and was shocked by how closed-minded people could be. "Want to go get dinner after this?" Chris asked to break the silence, but before Jay could agree, Director Porter called her into the wardrobe that had become his impromptu office.

"Looks like I'll have to take a rain check," she said with a smile, and Chris threw up his hands in surrender. Now that he had opened up about his orientation, Jay felt that she should have been able to guess, but she knew it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

Inside of the wardrobe, director Porter instructed Jay to close the door behind her, something she was unwilling to do since the last time the man had started to undress himself in front of her. Still, she pushed the door, leaving it cracked slightly as a warning and a message.