Limits of Flesh 4 (Patreon)

Limits of Flesh

Chapter 4

-VB-

She was beautiful.

Staring into the mirror in her room after another debaucherous night with the twins, Taylor realized that while nothing so obtuse had changed about her, there were subtle changes here and there that did change how she looked. Her wide mouth didn’t look so froggish. Her wavy black hair seemed even better than before. Her still growing breasts seemed to be taking a shape to her liking. Her eyes shined brightly as -.

Well, that might simply be the light as well as the fact that she’d spent last night bouncing away on top of the twins instead of being pounded on, but that’s not the point.

She may not have been pretty before, but couldn’t deny anymore that by all accounts she was now indeed pretty.

‘Maybe I’m as pretty as Emma, now.’ The corners of her lips curled up a little at the thought. Wouldn’t that make Emma furious?

… No, pettiness was beneath her. School was beneath her now, but her dad would probably not let her stop attending.

She didn’t want to tell him anything, but last night before Adylan twins took her for another ride, they made their second demand clear to her.

She would either get her father onboard or cut ties with him, because leaving someone like that was unacceptable a security risk. He could be used against her.

And as much as she still loved her depressed, workaholic, and frankly still insensate dad, Taylor stepped into a world that she hadn’t been ready for.

She left her room, maybe for the last time, and walked downstairs. Adylan twins had dropped her off when her dad was home.

“Dad?”

“In here.”

Clinking and scraping sounds came from the kitchen. He was making breakfast?

“We need to talk. Can you turn off the stove?”

A pause. There was a click of a dial being set to zero, and dad walked out. He looked surprised as she sat down.

“... What’s wrong?”

At least he wasn’t completely blind. She dismissed whatever feelings she had about his inability to see through her about her school life because more than half of that was her fault. No problem gets solved when she, one half of this household, intentionally withholds further information, regardless of what she thought about the efficacy of what they could do individually or together.

She wasn’t going to do that, not if this talk right here in this kitchen could be the last time ever she might talk to dad.

And didn’t the possibility sting? No, it hurt. It burned.

She sat in fear of the consequences. Her instinct told her to defuse that fear through her insects, but her twins were strict about this: no problem gets solved if she withholds information, especially information speaking to her from herself. She had to work it through.

“Taylor, what’s wrong?” he asked her more urgently as he saw her pain written clearly on her face.

“A lot of things,” she replied wetly but with a smile. “I’m a cape, dad,” she began as she brought flies, moths, and butterflies through the open window and had them dance in a ring around her head. “And I’ve been one since the locker.”

-VB-

Every word was a struggle.

It did not pour out of her like stories and books have told her. It came out one word at a time. If she got lucky, then she would be able to bring out a phrase and need to pause.

And then she spoke about Lung.

The horror on dad’s face only twisted further when she told him that she had to beg for help, and it came with a price.

“And… what did you do?” dad asked.

She looked up at him, unable to keep the tears from building up. “I don’t have gas or cash, dad.”

His face contorted not into anger but anguish. He let his head fall into his hands, and she could see that he was trying his hardest to not cry.

“But that’s not where it ends.”

“What else could go worse?”

She hesitated, because she knew it was worse.

“You know how the E88 and the ABB are more or less … gone?”

He looked apprehensive even as he asked the question. “Yes, but what … does that have to do with you…?”

“I… I got trapped by the Empire, and they were there. The Adylan Twins. They told me that if … I gave myself to them…”

“Please tell me you didn’t-”

“Stormtiger was right behind me, and what else did I have to los-?”

Her head snapped to the side, and she looked blankly with wide eyes as she slowly turned back around. Her cheek stung.

“Your mother would have never sold herself like that. You shouldn’t have either!”

“Then what should I have done? I keep making stupid mistakes, and I can’t go back on it anymore!”

“We can go to the PRT-”

“Who couldn’t stop the Empire in the twenty years they’ve been here while Adylan twins ended them in the first week that I sold myself to them! And do you know what, dad? At least even if my status as the twin’s bitch was all I amounted to, then I could at least say to the world that I sold myself for something that mattered instead of being a nobody everyone at school keeps telling me that I am!”

His wide eyed shocked face and the white knuckled grip on his armchair showed her clearly what he thought of that, or rather hadn’t and still didn’t. He was drowning in his own self-pity and -!

She crushed those negative thoughts like Adylan twins taught her how to.

““I’m sorry.””

A pause.

She giggled quietly, and he laughed exasperatedly.

-VB-

“So … I guess I can’t tell you to stop,” Danny said tiredly.

“No. I don’t think the twins would let me, either.”

He didn’t take her for someone who would be fine with letting the man … men take charge of her like that.

“And the PRT and the Wards are out of question.”

“I will definitely convince the twins to work with them, but I don’t think I’m okay with them, not when they are so … ineffective.”

Now that was a term he agreed with her wholeheartedly on. “I really don’t want you to … work for a villain.”

“They’re less villainous and more mercenaries… and I think I bought them? They more or less told me that they would only be with me so…”

He forcefully kept his jaws from biting down hard as he could.

‘What a father I am,’ he thought depressedly. ‘I can’t see anything around me or Taylor.’ He paused. He can’t dictate anything anymore. He could see that. Even if he wanted to and he certainly could try, he didn’t know enough about these Adylan twins, their powers, what they wanted, and … what Taylor wanted.

Did she even want his help?

What was-?

…

She wasn’t here to tell him that she was leaving, was she?

“It … seems like you have it all taken care of, Taylor. You don’t need me,” he said slowly but with a heavy tiredness that was starting to weigh him down everywhere, including his speech. “What do you want?”

“... I didn’t start this conversation because I knew what I wanted. The twins wanted me to have you in or … to cut ties, because you’re too weak to defend yourself, and, in their words, by extension, me.”

That hurt.

A lot.

“I am -” he cut himself off. “No, I am weak. Is there anything I can even do? What do they mean by being ‘in’ anyways?”

“I don’t know. You would need to talk to-” she stopped abruptly, staring up at him. Or rather behind him. “Guys!” she said indignantly.

“We see-”

“We hear-”

“And know-”

“That he is interested.”

Danny blinked. Wasn’t he sitting with the wall on his back?

He looked up, and saw horned twins somehow balancing themselves on one foot on his armchair and leaning down in such a way that they had been just outside of his view.

“Nice to meet you-”

“Father-in-law.”

He punched them.