At first, there are no images, no sounds, she feels nothing
with her hands, no smells, no tastes. The first thing she recovers is the idea
that she is "she", a person. When she can finally hear her own
thoughts over the ringing in her ears, the first thing she wonders is what the
hell happened?
There is a cold, hard surface under my knees. My hand is
resting on something hot. My mouth tastes like metal. Am I bleeding? I look
forward, I see my hand, but it's weird, it looks drawn against a bright
background, no colors, only the edges are visible, as if it were a drawing of
my hand. The ringing returns. I close my eyes tightly. Deep breath. I think I'm
knocked out, but why? I stand with my eyes closed as the ringing subsides,
whatever is in front of me moves back and forth against my hand, and there is a
sound, loud but far away. I was in my house… no. I open my eyes, there are
colors again. What I support my hand against… is it skin? The sound… is the
breath. I look up and see… Abs.
I was with… Mary. Table. Classmates. Study. Victor. Leslie.
Fear. Bathroom sink. muscles.
I screwed up. Mary is pissed off. And I'm going to die.
The small woman tries to crawl away from Mary. She is
screaming. She doesn't say anything, she just screams in panic.
That's better. Mary smiles, it's exactly what she wants
Victoria to remember. She looks in the mirror and sees her friend desperately
trying to put some distance between the two of them, unable to even get out of
her sink. She relaxes her abdomen, she loves how her muscles stand out, but
it's tiring to keep them tense for long. And they still look good when relaxed,
only softer. It seems so unfair to have so much power in front of someone so
fragile. A few minutes ago, her tiny friend was probably worried about how to
get Victor into bed, now she's just worried about how to stay alive. Getting
her into that state of existential panic only took about five minutes and a
slap to her own abdomen. Maybe she went too far with the slap, her tummy still
burns and at first, when she saw the tainy tumble from her, she thought the
shock wave had killed her.
- Stop screaming – she orders Victoria, it's time to make things
clear.
Her crying, screaming and panic, everything gets stuck in
her throat. Victoria has to remind herself that she needs to breathe again and
even that she tries to do it as quietly as possible.
- I had a mini friend when I was a child, you know? Her name
was Joana. We had about... twelve, when one day we started to argue. It's those
little girl arguments that seem silly when you remember them, but at the time
they felt like something very important. We start calling each other names and
she yells at me: Your mom is a tainy whore!
Victoria gives a short gasp of surprise.
- Do you know what happened to Joana?
Victoria doesn't think she'll get another chance, so she
takes the opportunity to say the only thing she thinks is worth saying.
- Please don't kill me, please, please, please...
- Her mom found a better job and they moved to another city,
about a year before I met you.
Is she knocked out again? Maybe she hasn't fully regained
consciousness, is she delusional?
- I don't kill my friends, Victoria. I don't know how it
works among the other races, but when you're friend with an apex, that actually
means something. If Leslie had made eyes at Victor, I would have brought her here,
I would have put her right where you are right now, I would have talk to her
about how I'm a real woman and she's just a parasite or something, and I would
have squashed her… probably with my vagina, to emphasize being “more of a
woman”. But you're not Leslie, you're my friend.
- Oh my God, Mary, thank you, thank you, thank you...
- Shut up! – The apex loses her temper again, she grabs the
petite tainy with more force than necessary and brings her to her face-, you
knew I liked Victor, but you wiped your ass with that information, you little bitch.
Mary puts on her shirt and goes to the entrance of the
house.
- Make a video call to Leslie or Victor.
- What for?
- Because I said so!... – she holds the tainy in front of
her face, angry at her again – All I want to hear you say is “Yes Mary” and “No
Mary”, is that clear?
- Yes Mary.
- Am I going to hear to you say something else?
- Not Mary.
The little person in her hand takes out her phone from a
pocket, but she can't unlock it, her pathetically little hands are shaking too
much. The young apex takes a long breath to steady herself.
- Shit, Victoria, you have to stop talking back to me right
now. You wait for me to drop you off at the door and call them – she pauses-. They
have to see you leaving the house so they know you're not a stain on my
bathroom floor. I don't want them to be too scared of me, no yet anyways. I
want a good study group and those three are smart as fuck.
- Yes Mary.
- Now get the fuck out of my house. And don't come near me
in class, I'll look for you when I have less desire to dismember you.
- Yes Mary.
The gigantic teen feels less pissed off at Victoria every
time she hears her say "yes Mary." She goes back to the bathroom,
wets her face, and returns to the other students, who are putting their stuff
away.
- What happened, are they leaving?
- I think it will be the best – Fred answers, when it’s
obvious that neither of the two tainys dares to say a word -. But we can come
back tomorrow, when we're all in a better mood, what do you say, Mary?
She thinks it's bullshit, but she's not going to force
anyone to stay. She still feels her pulse racing and doesn't trust herself with
these three at her mercy. Furthermore, Fred used the right words, offered an solution
and asked her for her opinion, or rather for her permission. It seems that in
addition to being intelligent, he is a very cunning and brave little boy, the
only one who spoke while the other two frightened mice hid behind.
- Okay, well, see you tomorrow.
- Victoria called us – adds Leslie -… in case you are
interested in knowing.
The tainy bathroom is a small room in a corner of the apex
bathroom, it’s next to the hallway and has its own door. When in use, it turns
on lights that are visible from the large bathroom, so an apex knows it's in
use and can decide if she wants to use her bathroom anyway or wait for some
privacy, since the walls of the tainy bathroom are very thin. This time the
colossal teenager did not notice that the small bathroom was occupied.
One of the games that she greatly enjoyed with her husband
was that of the evil giant who abused little people. A tainy like her hardly
needs to work to subdue a mini half her height, but faced with the massive
strength of an apex, being a mini or a tainy doesn't make a difference. In
those games she could be a queen who decided the fate of the victims, a slave
that the giant saved because of her beauty, or even a victim, camouflaged among
the others, listening to their plans to escape and savoring their pain and fear
firsthand. In addition to enjoying the abuse that Mary's father could inflict
on his inferiors, she also enjoyed her secret pleasure, watching her husband in
the apex bathroom through the small opening in the tainy bathroom, without him knowing
it. His bulky muscles worked harder during a shower or while getting ready in
front of the mirror, than they did to disintegrate a person during their games.
It's because of the memory of those endless hours of pleasure that Judy finds
it so hard not to spy on Mary when she overhears her humiliating a tiny
student. Judy wants to see the young tainy suffer, but she also wants to see
her daughter inflict that suffering, especially since the young apex evidently
inherited from her father the ability to build a beautiful, toned body. But she
resists the temptation of it, which causes her an embarrassing form of pride.
Hours after the situation in the bathroom, Judy prepares
with her son to receive the "traditional" parents of the young man's
girlfriend. The woman worries that her daughter, in a bad mood, could cause
trouble, but if what she heard, or rather, what she spied between Mary and the
little friend, proved something to her, it’s that the young giant has great
self-control. Besides, she hasn't left her room since her classmates left and
probably won't show up for several more hours, so it shouldn't be a problem.
While they finish eating the juicy chicken that Lester
helped her prepare, Judy thinks that she has to share more with tainys her age.
With her prejudices and the little information her son gave her, she expected
to find a pair of stiff old tainys dressed in fancy clothes, but Tabitha and
Thomas are a lovely couple. She runs a small business advising other small
businesses on how to hire young people and prevent them from quitting at six
months. He works in a shop that repairs computers and cell phones. Thomas in
particular is very interested in using his knowledge to advise small companies
to digitize their business, as an extra service in his wife's company, so they
both could manage their own time and have more time for their daughter. Judy
personally hasn't had to worry about money or time for years because, although
she has an office job, she receives an apex salary, so she earns more money
than the better prepared couple could dream of earning in the best of their
successes, all thanks to Mary. But she finds it admirable how they manage to
take advantage of every opportunity to better their lives and the life of her
daughter Evelyn, she even feels that she herself is a bit boring in comparison,
and yet she is the one who comes up with the most applauded idea at the table:
she will offer her boss the services of Tabitha's company, in exchange for a
percentage, of course, as a token of gratitude. If all goes well, the apex
company would be the tainy's biggest customer, and they might even offer Thomas
digitization services. The three adults think at the same time about how
inconvenient it would be if they were to have a business relationship and the
children of both families decided to break up, which is very likely at that
age, but each decides for themself that this potentially lucrative friendship
will resist the ups and downs of young love.
-I can go get a bottle of wine – Evelyn offers getting up -,
Lester can show me the way – she smiles at him.
Her son's smile is so big it almost seems fake, but it's
not. That's how much he likes the raven-haired beauty that is Evelyn.
- I can go! – Judy stands up -, I have to go to the bathroom
anyways and I wouldn’t like to deprive the young couple of a pleasant moment
with your parents, Evelyn, but thanks for offering.
Together in the task of teasing the lovestruck teens a
little, the three adults share a knowing look before Judy makes her way to the
elevator.
- So, Lester - Thomas enunciates with great clarity -, I
suppose you are using protection?
- Dad! –
Evelyn is shocked.
She first did five sets of push-ups, then various types of
crunches, and then several sets of squats. Mary spent a long time working out
hoping to distract herself from what she did with Victoria in the bathroom, but
when she was about to start the burpess she resigned herself to the fact that
she couldn't stop thinking about it. Now she is lying on the floor next to her
bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about how she could have scared Victoria
more, it never hurts to come up with new ways to intimidate and humiliate those
people who could compete for territory with the vermin that live in the
inaccessible corners of her home. She no longer has any doubts about it, if the
study meeting had been extended, her helpless classmates would have ended up
being victims of her frustrations. She could have undressed her, or undressed
herself, thus emphasizing to her that even while doing something that should be
embarrassing, she only succeeds in further emphasizing her superiority. But
that might turn out to be no punishment at all, for all she knows, Victoria
might be using what she saw in the bathroom to masturbate herself silly. It's a
very fine line. She could include Victoria's family in her threats, she knows
where they live after all, but that risks being TOO scary, she would never see
the tainy again and she doesn't want to lose her friend, just remind her to be
less selfish. She could take a more physical approach, squeeze the tainy a
little, bend her, stretch her… Shit! She needs something in her hands, someone
in her hands, someone in whom she can unleash her desire for violence, someone
she can mold between her fingers and who will fall apart when her fingers leave
no space in between, someone who she can wash off her hands when she's done.
The right hand of the young apex unconsciously begins to run along her athletic
abdomen, feeling the flexible channels that separate each relaxed muscle, while
her imagination wanders among the different shapes she could give a tainy's
body if she had one within her reach. Mary wonders not for the first time how
much of what she can do to a mini or tainy she could do to a human as well. It
would be complicated logistics, since she couldn't do it in her house. She is
jumping from one stage to another when her phone vibrates. It's Leslie.
- Leslie – answers Mary, hoping to end the call as soon as
possible. So much imagining made her really horny and she wants to take care of
it.
- Hello, how are you, Mary?
- Leslie, we just saw each other a few hours ago, save
yourself the useless talk and tell me what the fuck you want to tell me.
- Víctor liked what you did with Victoria! – she rushes to say.
Mary's fingers stop under her underwear, inches from her
crotch.
- What?
She had a plan and that's not how she had to go through it.
She has the information that Mary wants, in her mind, Leslie took the
conversation at her pace and when it was more convenient, she revealed to the
apex the reason for her call and showed her that she could be a helpful person.
That was supposed to be the first step in showing herself as a potential friend
and when she could say that she had an apex friend, the world would open up at
her feet, no more of the crap that has haunted her for the last few years. But
Mary immediately took control away from her. There's no plan that stands up
when you know the hell that can unleash an annoyed apex. Now the tainy feels
carried away by the tide and all she can do is keep swimming.
- When you took her, when you started playing with her, we
were all terrified, but while you were going to the bathroom, I saw that Victor
had a boner. Also Fred, but I think Victor's would be more interesting to you.
- Fred Also, huh. And what makes you think that I would be
interested in Víctor -the teenager smiles.
There is a long pause.
- Because you like him - Leslie says at last, concentrating
all of her attention on sounding confident and preventing her fear from seeping
into the phone.
Was she wrong? Did Mary not like Victor and all that display
of power was for another reason? If so, she has to get the hell out of there.
- Interesting.
Mary is silent, waiting to see how long her partner on the
other end of the line can hold out.
Leslie clings to her phone, not daring to say anything,
listening to the slow, deep breathing on the other end of the call.
- What are
you doing right now? – continues Mary.
- I'm at your door – the tainy immediately blurts out, as
terrified of telling the truth as she is of lying about it.
- In my house? – She asks surprised – have you been there
all these hours?
- No! Of course not, I'm not some kind of stalker or
something - she laughs, but doesn't get anything from the other side -, I was
gone, but I thought you'd want to know this, that it would make you happy, so I
came back to tell you personally.
- You know that you were the one who called me, right? I
don't think you understand what "personally" means, little one.
- It's just…- she squeezes the phone with both hands so hard
she is surprised that it doesn't break – I also wanted to see you…
It is her turn to take a long pause. Mary never thought that
Leslie of all people would leave her speechless. She smiles delighted with the
situation, a minute ago she needed to masturbate to appease the heat that
accumulates between her legs, and now she has the opportunity to do that and
have a little fun with the little tainy who delivered herself to her door. She
just might have an entertaining and satisfying night, if she's careful to make
the fragile student last. Her little toy might even still be alive when she's
done, it'll be interesting to see where that desire to spend time together
takes her.
- Stay there, I'm coming for you.
The command is all she hears before the call hangs up. Victoria
will see the apex after all and have the chance to prove herself to her, but
getting what she wants is more terrifying than she expected.
The huge young woman hurries to put on a short black T-shirt
that she finds lying on the floor and white leggings that expose the full
length of her athletic legs. As she adjusts her underwear, she smells the rich
musk spreading from her hungry vulva. Her little classmate definitely won't
last, she'll tear the tainy to pieces against her pussy as soon as she gets her
hands on the little thing, the liquefied remains and a good memory will have to
be enough to cheer up the rest of the night.
- Three study partners will have to suffice – Mary murmurs
as she closes the door to her room -, I'm dying to tell Victoria, that pervert
will want to know everything I do to Leslie. I'm even going to let her keep
Fred if she needs a dildo to play with.
Her footsteps stop dead by the dining room table. On the
surface is a tiny table and there are four little people staring at her. She's
sure they heard her ramble, at least the dildo part.
- << Why just when mom is not here? >> – Lester
wonders when he sees his sister standing next to the table.
She's wearing leggings that barely cover her butt and a pair
of nipples that threaten to poke through the short T-shirt reveal to everyone
that she's not wearing a bra, again. His mother has told her several times that
she has to wear less revealing clothes, but the words seem to bounce off her
hard big head, unable to stay inside.
- I'm hungry – says the colossal teenager and goes to the
kitchen.
- Should we go? – asks Evelyn's mother, visibly flushed by
the words that everyone heard from Mary.
- Surely she will stay in the kitchen - Lester answers,
knowing that they need at least ten minutes to get to the exit. There's no way
they'll ever make it out before she gets back, if she decides to come back, and
he doesn't want to be at the level of her bare feet if that happens, yuck -
we'd better wait until Mom gets back, at least so you can say goodbye, but I
assure you that there will be no problems with my sister, there is no reason to
worry.
Lester makes an effort to lighten the atmosphere after the
awkward encounter with Mary, and the conversation begins to pick up when the
heavy footsteps of the apex shake those present again as she approaches the
table holding a sandwich.
She told the tainy to stay where she is, so as she walks to
the table, Mary decides that she has no reason to think that Leslie won't be
waiting for her at the door even if she makes her wait a few more minutes, she
has time for a snack.
- So, Lester, who are your little guests? – She takes a bite
of her sandwich.
- I'm with my girlfriend, Evelyn. They are her parents,
Tabitha and Thomas – he feels uncomfortable calling them by their first name –
we are having dinner with mom, but she went to the bathroom, she should be back
soon.
- Oh yes, I remember Evelyn, I like Evelyn, how are you,
little bug?
- Hey! – Lester reacts, outraged.
- It's okay, Lester - Evelyn soothes him, tucking a lock of
her black hair behind her ear -. She's not saying that to annoy me. I'm fine,
Mary, thanks, how are you?
- Hungry - she takes another bite of the sandwich and
continues talking with her mouth full -, I spent all this time exercising in my
room, I didn't want to bother since I knew there would be a small dinner or
something, but I guess I forgot because of the exhaustion , hunger,
masturbation and all that.
Thomas chokes up at the apex's comment and his wife pats him
on the back to get him to recover. Evelyn blushes from head to toe and Lester
stands up, furious.
- What the fuck is wrong with you, Mary?! Why don't you take
your idiotic jokes elsewhere.
- As always, my brother is the only well behaved tainy who
stands up when someone superior enters the room. You should learn from him,
Evelyn, I expected more from you.
Mary's huge hand moves with more speed and precision than
something with that much mass and inertia should. One moment Evelyn was there,
at the table, next to them, and in the next moment she's facing the huge
teenager's face, dozens of meters up, screaming for her life.
- I like you, Evelyn, but I thought you were better trained,
it's a pity.
- No! – Tabitha screams, desperate.
The tainy girl's father tries to say something, but he still
doesn't recover and his words are drowned out in his raspy voice.
- Wow, are you okay, little one? It seems that little daddy
needs help with his throat, would you like us to give him a hand, Evelyn?
From where he stands, Lester can't see her girlfriend, only
her powerful hands holding her back. When his sister's hands part, he knows
something is terribly wrong. Thick dark drops rain down on the stretch of table
that separates the furious tainy from the round and gigantic breasts of his
sister. The screams of his girlfriend turn into terrible shrieks that no longer
sound human.
His sister's massive fingers descend to the table, leaving
behind the battered form of Evelyn. Lester runs up to her, strips off his
shirt, and presses it against the huge hole where her left arm used to be. It
doesn't make sense, she was fine, she didn't do anything wrong. His sister
didn't seem to be doing anything, but the woman weeping in his arms is missing
an entire part of her body, a hand he has fondly held hundreds of times.
- Come here, Thomas, let's see if the doctor can soothe that
throat.
Lester can't bring himself to look away from Evelyn, who is
rapidly turning pale. Behind him he hears her girlfriend's mother scream,
begging her sister to stop and let her husband go, and he also hears the wet
sound of something penetrating a human body. He wasn't there when she did it,
but his classmates told him about what Mary did to another student a few days
ago during lunch. Accustomed to her violent impulses, he didn't think too much
about it, but now everything he heard seems like a terrible warning.
Blood continues to leak around the shirt covering her wound,
and he sets his girlfriend down to press down with both hands. A shadow covers
both, it is Mary's fingers that once again descend, a few meters away. This
time they leave behind a hellish image. Thomas, Evelyn's father, convulses on
the table, the torn stump that was once his daughter's shoulder protruding from
his mouth, the rest of the limb stuffed inside his body. The man grabs the
bloody limb and tries to remove it from his body, but his small hands slipping
over and over with the blood, he doesn't have the strength to do it. In an even
worse act, bloodshot-eyed and desperate to get the air his lungs need, he
starts clawing at his own throat. But everything is useless.
- Daddy - Evelyn murmurs weakly, reaching her only hand out
to her father - help him - she says to Lester.
The young man reacts immediately, runs towards the man and
without hesitation grabs the piece of limb that protrudes from his mouth.
Thomas also grabs the stump again and together they pull on it. But it doesn't
budge, not one inch. The arm must be imprisoned by the hyperextended walls of
the man's trachea, even the ribs may be pressing on it, as well as the rest of
the internal organs. Mary's enormous strength is enough to deform the entire
body of a tainy at her whim, no tainy possesses the raw power to undo what the
teenager has done. Lester can only keep trying, as Thomas's attempts grow
weaker and weaker, until his hands collapse and the dying man can only shake
weakly, his body still trying to find the precious oxygen.
- Can you feel your dad's organs at your fingertips, Evelyn?
That would be amazing - smiles sadistically Mary.
Lester returns to her girlfriend, but before he can get to
her, her body disappears under a huge thumb that covers her entire torso. When
Mary raises the finger with which she affirmed her, renewed screams of pain
pierce Lester's heart, the young woman lying on the table has diminished even
more, her other arm has been torn off in the same way as the previous one,
without the smallest effort.
- It seems that the remedy was worse than the disease –
comments the young apex, taking the catatonic Tabitha from the table -, did you
know that a few days ago I killed a little woman like you by sticking a shirt
up her ass? – she asks the woman in her hand, who doesn't answer, just waits
with an empty look on her face -, although my finger probably did more damage
than the shirt, so I have a good feeling about this idea, Mrs. “Evelyn's mom”.
Your punishment for not getting up when I entered the room will be less severe
than your husband's, I admit that I went too far with him, my bad, but you
learn from mistakes, right?
Lester can't press both wounds at the same time and what’s
left of Evelyn is bleeding to death in his arms. From the heights the
animalistic screams and grunts of his girlfriend's mother being tortured by
Mary are heard.
- Shit! the fucking arm breaks. Poor quality - a
particularly terrible scream is heard - that's it! If you want, you can, they
say.
When her fingers descend for the third time, they gently
leave Tabitha, her pants were ripped off by the young woman at some point and
the disfigured and broken hand of her own daughter protrudes from her behind.
The tainy stretches trying to reach her husband, but the man no longer moves.
Meanwhile, Mary takes the opportunity to see the time on her
phone, but she accidentally stains the screen with the blood that wets her
fingers.
- Damn - she says reluctantly -, your fucking blood stained
my phone, Evelyn.
Mary didn't expect anything with her comment, she said it
just because, that's why the answer surprises her so much. She hears the small,
semi-dismembered woman at the table apologize in a barely audible voice. Evelyn
apologizes for the inconvenience that her agonizing death causes to her
executioner. It's exquisite.
- Excuse me - Mary says before brushing Lester aside with
her finger and taking Evelyn away one last time -. I guess you don't have much
blood left, do you? It's better that way, you'll make less of a mess in my
mouth.
The young and carefree apex takes the small and defenseless
tainy to her mouth.
- Hey, little thing - the gigantic teen says, fitting the
malleable body into her mouth with her tongue. She lowers her head until her
mouth is over Tabitha's — eyes up here. This is what happens when you pass your
rudeness on to your children.
Mery bares her teeth and through the small gap between the
colossal calcium structures, Evelyn's tiny head pokes out. The young woman who
spent the last few seconds being crushed and palpated by the adolescent's
muscular tongue manages to focus her gaze on her tortured mother.
- I don't want to die, mom – she manages to whisper.
The teeth close. A weak stream of blood falls next to the
severed head. Tabitha heaves a sigh before passing out. Lester just stares in
disbelief at the delicate little head lying next to the unconscious Tabitha,
the only thing left of the woman he imagined starting a family with. He never
felt so much hate. Suddenly, the long index finger of the monster that is his
sister rests on the head of the woman he loved and the tip of her finger begins
to press down slowly but inexorably.
- Give her something to bury – he asks, in a neutral voice,
when the fragile skull begins to deform and creak.
- You're right – she removes her finger -, I suppose it
would be good for the grieving and stuff. You're so smart bro, just make sure
your next girlfriend is a little more educated. Now if you don't mind - she
gets up from her seat.
- What’s the meaning of this? – Judy asks from the floor
when she sees her daughter getting up from the table with bloody fingers.
- Hello mommy – she smiles sweetly at her -, it's nothing, I
just got rid of some rude bugs, don't worry.
Mary was preparing to step over her mother when she is
interrupted by the voice of the small woman in front of her bare toes.
- How did you get rid of them? Did you kill them? - she asks
with a stern voice.
- Yes, just like that, now if you don't mind, I have a guest
waiting for me at the door and I would like…
- Come here right now - Judy orders.
The young apex takes a step back and immediately kneels in
front of the diminutive tainy, a behavior she learned from a young age for when
her mother tells her to “come here” from the floor. On her face you can see
that she is surprised and confused by her own reaction.
- How dare you behave like this, young lady! – reprimands
the tainy, gesturing with her hands -, the other day it was Samuel, and now
this! Murdering our guests, under my roof! No daughter of mine will behave like
this in my house.
Mary tries to hide how intimidated she is by her mother.
- Pfff, your little friend hardly counts if you think about
it, I did him a favor...
- I'm not asking you! – she interrupts her, recklessly,
Mary's brow furrows, showing that she is beginning to lose patience, but Judy
has come too far to back down now - You will never kill any more tainys or
minis in my house! You won't even kill a fucking ant without my permission! Now
go to your room! I'll go talk to you after I see the mess you made, young lady.
Mary gets up. Judy is left facing the teenager's sweaty bare
feet. This is the moment of truth, the young apex can obey her, or she can
decide that Judy has to become a liquefied pile of skin, organs and bones under
her big toe. The athletic colossus in front of her stands impressively tall,
her tanned skin brings out her refined physique and a thin sheen of her sweat
enhances the definition of her inconceivably powerful musculature.
They both look into each other's eyes, without saying a
word. Mary seems to wait for the slightest sign. Judy doesn't budge an inch.
The world disappears around the two of them, each showing her more serious
face, each hiding her doubt, each testing the limits of her own capabilities.
Although one in particular has more at stake than the other.
Finally, the apex's powerful feet take a step back before
the huge young woman turns and withdraws between grunts and shuddering steps.
Judy knows that she still has to deal with whatever is on
the table and with Lester, but she admits to herself that she never felt so
powerful, or so alive.