Judy can see the thick clumps dripping from the toes to the ground, crushed organs and pulverized bone, nothing but dirt on the hulking appendages on Mary's foot.

- It was a joke – says the teenager, after an uncomfortable silence.

Judy looks up and sees her daughter flushed, even embarrassed.

- ... the cleaning my toes, I'm sorry. I mean… I thought it would be funny if I – she continues, looking away from her mother at her feet, for something to focus on – I think, now, I'll go to the bathroom to clean the… you know.

The gigantic teenager heads to the bathroom with awkward step, supporting only the heel of her right foot.

- I'll clean that up right away - she says from the bathroom.

She normally finds it cute to see such a powerful, yet young apex trying to deal with awkward situations. It would be funny to see her scurry away in embarrassment from her own bad joke, except that the awkward way she limps as she walks away is her way of avoiding muddying the floor with what's left of Samuel. In front of Judy is the other part of the man's remains, a slowly spreading pool of blood, some teeth, and a shoe with a foot still inside. That foot walked into this house. The little woman finds her own lack of empathy so uncomfortable. In the couple of months that she met him, she learned to know him and trust him, she shared with him things that were very important to her, including her life with her children. Outside of herself, Samuel must have been the person who knew the most about Lester and Mary, he could have been a great friend to the apex teenager, a wise adviser, but now he's a mass of liquefied meat soon to disappear down the drain, and that fact doesn't make her feel the slightest bit of guilt, or pity. She didn't feel guilty either with the games she played with Mary's father years before, when she chose and he used minis and tainys on his apex muscles, as toys, or as cream.

A piece of wet toilet paper rolls across the floor in front of Judy. In an instant, any trace of Samuel disappears, lost in the piece of paper that Mary crushes within her clenched fist.

- Mom – she puts her left hand behind her head and her right fist that holds the paper, behind her back -, I know the joke was in bad taste, and I'm sorry.

The young woman who looms large in front of Judy pauses, waiting for an answer, still avoiding her gaze, embarrassed. How could Judy feel guilty for the decisions of someone so powerful, how could she, in her insignificance and weakness, be responsible for the actions of a being as superior as Mary. Even at her short seventeen years, she has achieved more power and importance than she or her son will ever know.

- I understand that you didn't mean it, Mary, but there is a time and a place to jokes, - Judy tries to use the fact that Mary apologizes for a bad joke, but not for killing a tainy, to wake up from the adoration she tends to feel in front of an apex – I don't want to think that you murdered my friend just for the fun of it, so would you mind explaining, young lady?

- Oh, sure – the teenager smiles, relaxing a bit -. You see, I didn't know who the bug was until…

- Please - Judy interrupts -, don't call him “bug”, I'm a tainy too.

- Oh, but you are my mom, not a bug, it has nothing to do with it. Anyway, I didn't know who "he" was until he talk about being a teacher at my school.

- So you knew him.

- No, but I knew who he was, and I knew that he had a daughter. He confirmed it to me while I was halfway through making him into a foot moisturizer, remember? The thing is that I know his daughter, or rather, I knew her...

- Don't tell me that you...

- That's a funny story – the smile only grows on the teenager's face as she reviews her memories -, you see, during lunch, since I was in the park, I changed my school shirt for my green t-shirt, Do you remember which one, the one you bought me last week? Anyway, I was sitting next to a tree with my friends and suddenly, I see that a little further away is this tainy, wearing the same damn shirt as me.

- Don't tell me that by wearing the same shirt you...

- No, of course not mom! It wasn't for wearing the same shirt, what do you think I am, a psycho? No, but I did know it was unacceptable, so I told her she had to take it off, right away. And do you know what she replied to me?... She said no!, she started to talk something about her not wearing anything underneath or something like that, can you believe it? The little THING did decide that it was more important for her not to show her tits in public than to obey me? ME!!! So I told her that if she didn't take it off herself, I was going to do it, and I was going to shove it up her ass.

- Oh my God - Judy whispers.

- I warned her mom, believe me. But there are people you just can't reason with, so I grabbed her from the group she was with and ripped her shirt off, and what do you think? It was true, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, she was topless, but who cares, it was a couple grains of rice if you ask me. She started screaming and apologizing, but I had already given her my word, so I ripped off the shorts she was wearing, rolled up the shirt, and started shoving it up her ass. It wasn't easy, have you ever tried to thread a very, very small needle with a very thick thread? The little bug started kicking and writhing, but I wasn't going to be a liar, so I kept pushing and in the end, I managed to get the whole shirt inside her, and well, when I was there, the question had to be asked, you know ? How far up her ass could the shirt go? So I kept pushing, by then other apex had gathered around me to cheer me on. I could feel the tiny friends of the tainy protesting against my feet, but I didn't let them distract me, I already had, like, the entire first phalanx of my finger inside her, I had to finish. You should have seen me mom, I was like, super focused. A thick, dark liquid began to come out of her mouth and dripped onto my fingers, disgusting. I never knew when she had stopped moving, and suddenly, the tip of the roll poked out of the liquid, I kept pushing, and the rolled up shirt came out completely and fell to the ground along with all the organs that I had pushed out of her body! You should have seen that fucking shirt, mom, it was like, the best roll in the history of rolls, I guess everyone thinks I'm super good at doing weed joints now, because that fucking roll went right through that tainy's stupid body and came out exactly the way it came in, It didn't fall apart one bit. Everyone started celebrating, as if I scored a goal or something. It was amazing, I swear.

Annoyed by her daughter's blissful expression as she told how she ripped up the body of a little tainy, Judy looked down, but found only the young woman's feet, which seemed as happy as the rest of Mary. Her toes clenched and expanded with each jolt in the story, rubbing against each other and pounding against the ground with the force of a herd of running elephants, also pushing the dank stench of sweat and lockdown from a full day at school. On the back of the feet, the tendons stood out and disappeared under the skin with the movement of the toes, huge and thick as the masts of an ancient ship, the kind that used sails, powerful, reminding her that even the smallest movement of her daughter implies strength beyond imagination. For a moment, she feels the need to crawl on her knees to those terrible toes of hers and worship them, hug them and massage them, no matter how much sweat and smell covers them. But she immediately controls herself, reminding herself that it is her daughter that she has in front.

- So, on the same day, you killed the daughter and the father... why?

- Pff, please, mom. When the guy found out that someone turned his daughter into a meat ring, he was going to be all depressed and bored, and I know you, I'm sure you'd feel sorry for him and stay with him to comfort him and help him get over his terrible loss and all that. You have too soft a heart, mom, he was going to drag you into years of depression, besides, he was going to eventually find out that I was the one who killed his bug-daughter and he was never going to be able to do anything directly against me to get revenge, imagine if he would try to harm you, or Lester, just to annoy me, fragile as you are. No thank you very much. Besides, I did him a favor, he died not knowing that his daughter was dead, and I thought of you too, saving you a lot of drama. Am I a great daughter, or am I a great daughter?

Judy wants to be mad at her daughter right now, she looks up at her, sees the little shorts that expose her long, toned legs almost completely, sees her well-defined midriff for all the world to see, from where she's standing, almost between the teenager's bare feet, she sees her bare underboobs, she has told her that she exposes too much skin, but she doesn't care either, Judy sees her proud smile, very high up, and she wants to reprimand and punish her. But it's not what she feels. She has a twisted sense of pride for Mary, because everything she's seen her do, the brutal execution of a defenseless man, the torture of the man she herself had chosen to share her bed, all springs from a place of love. Love for her mother, love for her brother and the need to protect them, to take care of them, even if it is from the consequences of her own immature decisions. Even the death of Nicole, Samuel's daughter, seems logical to her, every apex lives with the constant certainty of their own superiority, that their decisions must be respected by any other race, and how to deny them that certainty, how to contradict it and explain to Mary that Nicole had her own decisions, when an immature and dependent adolescent does not need more than the tip of her finger to dismantle a disobedient tainy.

Her mother doesn't seem as happy with the story as the other apex that were with her at the time, but it's to be expected, after all the person who got the worst of the experience was a tainy, Mary thinks she wouldn't be either delighted if someone told her the story of how they hurt an apex, unless that apex is an idiot, like some she knows at school. Normally when angry, her mother refuses to let her pick her up and chooses to go anywhere herself, even if it takes forever more to cross the house.

- Do you want me to pick you up, mom?

- Please - the petite woman replies, watching intently as the huge muscular plates expand and dance under the skin of the teen's legs as she crouches.

- Tell me where.

The short walk to the kitchen ends any serious feelings of annoyance from Judy. Traveling sitting in her daughter's palm, surrounded by fingers that curl over her protectively, brings a feeling of security that she doesn't find anywhere else in her life. She enjoyed the same way with Mary's dad, the sex was amazing, it's true, but one of her favorite things was the security provided. The hand that holds her, and which could pulverize her bones, her organs, and her muscles with the most insignificant effort of its intricate muscles, also stands between her and any danger, great or small, that tries to harm her from the outside world. Knowing that the same immense power of Mary protects Lester brings her a peace that she can never thank her daughter enough for. Compared to that, Samuel's death feels to Judy like losing a sex toy, inconsequential fun. Nicole seems even less to her than that, a useless accessory that came with the toy, nothing more.

- The elevator is working for you to go back to the floor, so I left you at the counter, I'm going to take a shower. Today was hot as hell, I bet I stink. Good thing I'm not the guy between my toes - she says as she walks off to the bathroom – Says Mary, while crushing one final time the paper in her fist before throwing it to the trash.

Judy sees her daughter throwing away the paper with the broken toy and listens the rumble of footsteps that fades. She feels the rumble under her own feet as well. She's grateful for everything Mary gives her, whether the apex knows it or not, but you can't let a teenager know something like that, so while she's making dinner for her son and herself, she buys Mary's dinner on an app and decides that she is going to take a tour to her daughter's room. She'll make sure the teen harnesses some of her immeasurable physical power and superiority to tidy up her room and shake up the apex furniture, just to remind her that she can't go around crushing her things and joking about it.