Limitless Evolution As a Snake

”Genes don’t lie,” Brawn whispers back, shaking his head like he’s witnessed a miracle. ”Boss’s blood, through and through. Never seen anything like it. Whole market, gone quiet, and the kid didn’t even bite anyone.”

”Boss’s brothers are gonna hear about this,” Beef says, practically giddy. ”Gonna hear about this for years.”

I want to scream. I want to slither into a hole and never come out. Instead, I just uncoil my tail, letting the bag of tributes fall by the door, and drape myself in a soup-scented puddle of my own poor life choices, staring at the ceiling as it owes me answers.

[System: Congratulations, mate. You tried to be nice and accidentally became a legendary crime lord. Absolute psychopath move.]

Well, I didn’t mean to.

[System: Yeah, well, tell that to the market. Tell that to Granny Nettle’s soup. Reckon she’s already telling the whole of Twaiwi you’re some kind of soft-spoken devil. Reputation like that doesn’t wash off, mate. Not even with the soup.]

I curl tighter around myself, dripping broth onto Dad’s expensive floor, and try very hard not to think about what he’s going to say when he hears this. Try very hard, and fail completely, because some small horrible part of me already knows exactly what he’s going to say.

He’s going to be proud.

Beef sets the bag down and starts talking before I even slither through the doorway, words tumbling out fast and borderline worshipping. I catch fragments: no violence, total compliance, broke them without touching them, some kind of technique, sir, you should have seen it.

Dad’s head comes up slow, that particular kind of slow that means he’s paying real attention now. His eyes land on me, and for one horrible second before he says anything at all, I watch pride crawl across his face a sudden flush of heat blooming on his cheeks that my pits read as pure, terrifying satisfaction.

”That’s my boy,” he boasts.

I open my mouth to say something, anything, some kind of denial or deflection or joke to break the moment, and nothing comes out. Just a small, stupid hum, the kind I do without meaning to when I’m freaking out and trying to look calm.

Dad smiles wider at that. Like the humming is part of the act too. Like even my instinctual hums are just more proof that I’m exactly what he always wanted. I did not want this. I want people to know this, even if it’s just in my own head, even if the only one who’ll ever hear it is a sarcastic system that finds my entire life hilarious.

[System: Mate, breathe. Well, don’t breathe, you’re a snake. Do the other thing you do instead, but you know what I mean.]

I don’t know what you mean anymore. I just know that somewhere out there, a soup stall lady is still crying, and here, in this study, my father is looking at me like I finally, truly belong to him.

”So anyway,” I hinted, trying to sound casual, like I’m mentioning I picked up milk on the way home instead of dropping a bomb, ”Lyra and Cherry are gonna help run the casino now.”

Dad doesn’t even look up from his paperwork. ”Yeah sure, no stress, family is family.”

That’s it. That’s the whole reaction. I hold my coil still, waiting for more, for some kind of interrogation or at least a raised eyebrow, but he just keeps signing whatever he’s signing as I told him the weather’s nice.

”You’re not gonna ask what they’re doing down there?”

”Do I need to?”

”No,” I say, way too fast.

”Then I won’t.” He finally glances up, and there’s that same proud-dad look from earlier, the one that makes my scales itch. ”Ten million’s a lot of debt, son. Whatever gets it paid, gets it paid.”

I should feel relieved. Instead I feel like I just signed something without reading the fine print, which, to be fair, is basically my whole life at this point.

Turns out ”whatever gets it paid” moves fast when Lyra’s the

one holding the clipboard. Within a week, the Crimson Coin doesn’t sleep anymore; that’s what we renamed it to, the Crimson Coin. It’s a good name, though I am biased, I guess.

Lyra flips it to 24/7 like it’s nothing, rearranges the floor plan, gets some contact on the surface, funnelling rich tourists down through a service elevator nobody’s supposed to know about. She’s got that calm cop-voice going the whole time, clipped and efficient, rattling off numbers like she was born doing this.

”Occupancy’s up sixty per cent,” she tells me, tablet in hand, not even looking up. ”Kebab stall opens Thursday; we’re branding it as ’Matt’s Original.’ Don’t ask questions; it tests well.”

”I have several questions.”

”Don’t ask questions,” she states again, and moves on, already halfway to yelling at someone about chip counts.

Cherry’s take on things is somehow both more and less concerning. She’s got the bunny girls working the floor in shifts, coaching them personally on how to lean in close and laugh at every joke a whale makes, no matter how bad. She hired actual mermen, the ones with the six-pack abs and the tail-to-legs trick, just to walk around the high-roller tables and make the female patrons forget they’re losing money.

Sirens too, tucked in the lounge area, humming something low and sweet that makes people want to stay just five more minutes, just one more hand.

”It’s called ambience,” Cherry tells me, horn stumps twitching, coat clutched tight like she’s nervous even though her plan is clearly working. ”Sorry, I mean, it’s not manipulation, it’s just, um, really good customer service?”

”That’s manipulation.”

”A little,” she admits, and then her eyes flicker, colour shifting, and for half a second she’s not stuttering anymore, voice dropping low and even. ”It works.” Then she’s back, blinking, apologising for the tone shift like she wasn’t even there for it.

I don’t ask about that either; I’d rather not ask. If my girls are happy then I’m happy, I think.

The money starts rolling in stupid fast. Tourists from the surface, the kind with hover-car money and no idea what tier of danger they just descended into, come down in droves, get charmed, get scammed, get charmed some more, and somehow leave thinking they had a great time.