Free Dark Serpent by Kylie Chan Page A

fault.’
    ‘Your family would never forgive you.’
    ‘If he was gone, my family could come out of hiding and I could see them again!’ I said, my voice strained.
    He was silent at that.
    ‘Can I come in?’ Simone called from outside the door.
    ‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ I said.
    Simone stopped when she saw John’s torso covered in burns. ‘We need to do something about this, Daddy.’
    He pulled himself up to lean on the bedhead. ‘You concentrate on your schoolwork. Let me deal with this.’
    She gestured towards his injuries. ‘Cuts and burns.’ She sat on the bed next to him. ‘Give me back my yin and I’ll sort this out myself.’
    He held his hand out, his expression grim. She took it, and they sat motionless for a moment, hands clasped, neither of them breathing.
    ‘Is everything okay?’ a girl said from outside the room.
    John and Simone snapped back with a visible jump.
    ‘Sorry, Hickory,’ Simone called out. ‘I got distracted talking to my dad. My bedroom’s the first one on the side there, around the balcony. I’ll be right there.’
    ‘Your father’s in there?’ Hickory said, her voice small. ‘The Dark Lord?’
    ‘Put a shirt on,’ Simone hissed, and John conjured a black Mountain uniform. ‘Come on in and say hello if you like, Hickory.’
    ‘Uh … I think I’ll just go wait for you in your room, if that’s okay,’ Hickory said.
    ‘That’s fine,’ John said with a small smile. ‘Simone will be along shortly.’
    Hickory squeaked and we heard her footsteps run towards Simone’s room.
    Simone glared at John. ‘You like scaring my friends.’
    ‘I don’t do anything at all to them,’ he said. ‘They do it to themselves.’
    ‘I suppose everybody’s afraid of the dark, Simone,’ I said.
    Simone rose. ‘How long before you can give me my yin back?’
    ‘Do you really want it that badly?’
    Simone gestured towards his chest. ‘I want to stop them doing that to you.’
    ‘I may consider returning it to you when you no longer want it for revenge.’
    She sighed loudly. ‘Yeah, I know the drill.’ She bent and kissed him on the cheek and he rubbed her back affectionately.
    ‘I have study to do,’ she said. ‘We only have a few more weeks until the final exams.’
    ‘You’ll be just fine,’ he said.
    As she went out, he sighed. ‘I have enough to worry about without dealing with the pair of you wanting to go off and throw yourselves at a demon that has been working for years to make itself more powerful.’
    ‘I won’t let her,’ I said.
    ‘I’m very glad. I’m also glad that she won’t let you.’
    After John was asleep, I went back to my reference books. Hickory was loudly complaining to Simone in the room next-door to me, and Simone was trying to placate her.
    ‘I opened it, and it was a black one!’ Hickory said. ‘I cannot believe this — he got me a black one. I told him I wanted a white one six weeks ago, and he goes and buys me a black one. My life is completely over.’
    ‘But there’s no difference,’ Simone said. ‘Look at this one — everything’s the same.’
    ‘Oh my god, see?’ Hickory said. ‘You have a white one. Honestly, how could any father get something so completely wrong?’
    ‘This is actually a black one. Michael changed it to white a while ago to annoy me,’ Simone said.
    ‘Michael?’ Hickory’s voice grew sly. ‘Michael who? There’s no Michael in our grade.’
    ‘Michael MacLaren.’
    Hickory gasped. ‘The Tiger’s Number One?’
    ‘Didn’t you know he used to live in the House of the North?’
    ‘No?’ Hickory was breathless. ‘He lived here?’
    ‘Beside the point now, he’s the Tiger’s Number One,’ Simone said. ‘He made this phone white to piss me off. His father had to have a white one, so Michael stole mine and practised on it before he did his father’s.’
    ‘That is so cool,’ Hickory said. ‘You are so lucky. Look at me, my dad is so useless he goes out and buys me a black one. He