The pendant was flickering.
Like a weakly beating heart, it pulsed with an ominous black glow.
Exactly the same color as that evil spirit.
"Did the evil spirit crawl into it?"
Ian held the pendant in both hands and examined it over and over, but he could not find any seam he could pry open. Even if the spirit really was hiding inside, it probably was not something he could just dig out with his fingers.
Just as Ian was feeling thoroughly puzzled,
"Ian?"
Clark Kent's voice suddenly came from behind him.
Ian jolted hard and nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned around and, sure enough, there was his old man in those thick glasses, a briefcase slung over one shoulder as if he had just gotten back from working late.
"What are you doing standing at the door?"
Clark hitched up the shoulder carrying the bag, his tone full of confusion. Faced with a parent, Ian instinctively let go of his coat and covered the pendant hidden beneath his shirt.
He knew very well
that if Clark wanted to, he could probably see all the way down to his bone cells. Still, seeing that his father's expression looked normal, Ian decided Clark probably was not walking around with that absurd vision switched on every second of every day.
"I was thinking about something."
Ian gave two dry laughs and quickly came up with an excuse.
"Quit spacing out. Come on, let's go inside."
Clark did not seem suspicious. He appeared to accept the explanation and reached out with his warm hand to pat Ian on the shoulder.
He headed for the front door first.
Ian followed right behind him.
The moment the door opened, warm light and the sound of the television came spilling out. The two of them walked in one after the other.
In the living room, Jonathan was sprawled on the couch scrolling through his phone, Jordan was furiously mashing buttons on a game controller, and Lois stood in the kitchen doorway biting her finger.
The moment Ian and Clark came in, her expression visibly relaxed.
"I was coming home from work and ran into Ian at the door," Clark said first, sounding like he had no idea Ian had gotten home late, though his two brothers clearly knew otherwise.
"So where exactly did you go, huh? You're getting home this late?" Jordan turned his head and looked at Ian, then immediately refocused on the fighting game on the TV.
At that,
before Ian could answer,
Jonathan cut in first with exaggerated drama. "He was definitely out dating, right? Our little Ian's finally awakened. He knows how to hang out with girl classmates after school now."
He waggled his brows at Ian, very obviously helping him cover for whatever had happened. Clearly, before Ian got home, Lois had not been in a good mood. She had probably even lost her temper a few times.
Ian felt a little warmth in his chest.
However,
he had already prepared for this.
"No. It was way scarier than hanging out with girl classmates."
Ian patted his chest as both his brothers stared in confusion. In an instant, the whole family's attention locked onto him.
"I was actually abducted by a taxi driver. He was a terrifying big guy, and he had an accomplice. They dragged me to an abandoned house and nearly got me killed."
"Luckily, I was clever enough to grab... grab a bicycle in time and pedal all the way back."
Ian nearly slipped up there, almost exposing the fact that he had gone full Grand Theft Auto on the way home.
That would absolutely have set off Lois's temper.
Really, he had only adjusted that one final detail. Everything before that had, in fact, been true.
Clark's eyelids twitched several times.
"A kidnapper?"
Jordan put down his controller at once, his voice full of shock. Just moments ago, in the fighting game, he had been using a character called Lightning to beat up a version of Superman that may or may not have been officially licensed.
"Hm?"
Lois also looked at her husband with uncertainty. Clark responded with a rather helpless expression and gave her a nearly imperceptible nod.
"This isn't just some rebellious fake story you made up for fun?"
Jordan looked at Ian with deep suspicion. The moment Ian frowned, he seemed to realize his little brother was not lying.
"Damn it! And you didn't call the police? What did the driver look like? Do you remember the plate number?" Jordan had always been hot-tempered by nature. He slammed a hand down and moved to grab his phone.
"Criminals are getting way too bold. What the hell is Superman doing? After all these years, the crime rate is still this high!"
Muttering angrily, Jordan dialed 911.
"My little brother was kidnapped!"
Before the operator had even spoken, Jordan had already started self-reporting the household identity. On the other end of the line, after the call connected, there was a very obvious pause, like the line had just been transferred.
"Hello, how can I help you?"
The operator spoke.
And right then,
Clark, whose mouth twitched once, stepped over and pressed the end call button.
"Dad? Don't tell me that even after something like this, we still have to back down?"
Jordan's relationship with Clark was not very good, so his tone toward his old man was full of gunpowder.
"We'll handle this. You three go back to your rooms first."
Clark did not answer directly. He only spoke in a tone that allowed no argument, carrying the familiar force of a parent giving an order.
Jordan was just about to blow up.
Jonathan grabbed him.
"Is it because the people who kidnapped Ian were actually targeting you and Mom?" Jonathan's imagination was active enough, and he had always been aware that his parents' jobs as reporters came with danger.
"Kids."
At that moment, Lois stepped over too. "Listen to your father. Trust us. We'll handle this. Ian won't be put in danger again."
"Right, Clark?"
When she finished speaking,
she looked at her husband.
"..."
Clark opened his mouth. He clearly wanted to tell the truth. But after glancing at the two older boys, he only nodded in the end and gave all three children a promise.
"No one is going to hurt my children."
He looked especially hard at Ian, who was trying his best to fade into the background like a tiny transparent person. Maybe it was that promise, or maybe a mother's words simply calmed children more than a father's.
"It better be like that!"
Jordan shot Clark a look, then grabbed Ian and started dragging him upstairs. "Looks like starting tomorrow, we have to walk you to school. After classes, you can wait and come home with us."
The high school they attended really was not that far away.
"Uh."
Ian wanted to refuse.
But Jonathan came over too. "You've got to tell us how you escaped the kidnappers. That's seriously amazing. If it had been me, I'd probably already be dead."
Both big brothers were showing concern in their own way.
Ian felt warm inside.
And just like that, under the quiet protection of his brothers, he headed upstairs with them.
Clark and Lois did not stop the three boys. They only watched the brothers leave the first floor.
Once the footsteps had completely faded,
"So what's the real story?" Lois immediately turned to Clark, arms folded and expression severe. She knew full well that both Ian and her husband had been hiding something.
"This might be a very frightening story."
Clark took a deep breath and removed his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. However, he did not immediately start recounting everything he had witnessed.
"To be honest, I still haven't figured out whether Ian's sudden changes are connected to what happened to me this morning."
Clark rolled up his sleeve.
There,
a savage wound ran across the muscle of his arm. The edges glowed with an eerie green light, as though some kind of energy was moving inside it and preventing his flesh from healing.
(End of Chapter)
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