Chapter Text
“Lloyd Garmadon?”
Lloyd opened his eyes a crack at the incredulity in the unfamiliar voice. The guy with the overly spiked hair was back. He was staring down at Lloyd, lying exactly where he’d first fallen among the trash bags, with shock written all over his face. Guess he didn’t realize who he was saving, thought Lloyd. Figures. Obviously he wouldn’t have bothered if he had known.
The guy seemed to deliberate for a moment over what to do. Then he turned tail with urgency and ran back down to the mouth of the alley, out into the open street, and disappeared as he turned a corner. Though his head still felt foggy from the first blow (and he was pretty sure it was bleeding too), Lloyd’s thoughts suddenly sharpened as a wild idea occurred to him; could the guy be going back to fetch his attacker? Hey dude, my mistake, sorry for stopping you from beating that kid with a metal bat by grabbing it and running away, I hadn’t realized it was Lloyd Garmadon, wanna go back to take turns finishing the job?
Scrambling to find purchase in the lumpy trash heap, Lloyd flailed his arms and legs to get up, only to regret it instantly when his right shoulder – which had received the brunt of the batter’s rage while Lloyd had protected his head with his arms – sent a sharp bolt of agony to his brain.
As Lloyd cried out from the pain, an approaching voice saying, “This way, Nya. Come on, quick!” came to him from the alleyway entrance. Carefully he slumped back down into the trash bags, panting a little. Under the fringe of his bangs he saw two figures running up to him, one the spiky-haired guy again, the other a girl in a leather jacket. Spiky knelt down in front of Lloyd, so that he saw his face clearly for the first time, but the girl’s legs faltered as she got close enough to see him.
“But… Kai, this is-”
“I know, I know,” said Spiky, shuffling tentatively to Lloyd’s right side and reaching for his arm. “But… we can’t leave him here. He’s just a kid.”
The girl only hesitated for a second before following his lead and coming around to Lloyd’s left. “Alright, um… we can take him to the hospital. They have a walk-in clinic-”
“No!” said Lloyd, more shrilly than he’d meant to, perhaps in part to ward off Spiky from touching the arm attached to his bad shoulder. “No hospitals. Please, they’ll… they’ll call my mom.” To get me out of there as fast as possible. “I don’t - … I don’t want her to worry about me.”
Typical that the one day he’d decided to walk from school at street level rather than parkour across the rooftops like he usually did, would be the day that someone who’d happened to have been carrying baseball gear in a bag and a sore grudge against Lord Garmadon, would happen to spot and recognize him on the way. It was bad enough that his mom couldn't do anything about all the bullying from his peers and unfairness of his teachers at school, without her having to know about the potential dangers of just getting to and from there.
“That’s kind of what moms do, mini Garmadon,” said the girl. At the nickname she called him by, Lloyd whipped his head to glare at her in reproach. In that glance he took in the facial similarities between her and Spiky – same olive-toned skin, same eye shape and color – and off-handedly wondered if they were siblings. The girl peered at him in concentration, her eyes flicking from the bleeding split in his temple to his torso to his legs. “But now that I look at you, I think we might be able to take care of you at home.”
Take care of…?
“Home?” said Spiky, eyebrows raised. “Ours? Take Lloyd Garmadon home with us? That might not be the best idea, sis.”
That’s right, thought Lloyd. Who in their right mind would bring the son of Lord Garmadon into the safety of their own house, even if he was injured?
“Hmm, yeah, you’re right,” said the girl. “That would spell trouble. Our parents are pretty anti-Garmadon.” She straightened up and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, dad will still be at the shop. Mom might be home, but… the garage will most likely be empty.”
The boy nodded, his overly gelled hair quills remaining stiff despite the movement. “Okay. Sure, yeah. The garage then. Feeling up for walking, kid?”
It took a second for Lloyd to realize the question was for him. “Uh, yeah. I think so.” His legs felt fine, thankfully.
“Great,” said Spiky. “Here, let’s get you up.” And before Lloyd could protest, the pair had taken hold of him under the arms and lifted him up from the trash bags.
“OWWWW OW OW!!” he yelled, twisting away from the brother, who promptly let go of his arm as though he’d touched something hot.
“Woah what! What is it? Your arm? Is your arm broken?”
“I don’t know… It hurts. Bad.”
“Sit here,” said the sister, nudging a discarded wooden crate under him with her foot. Lloyd dropped heavily on to it, gritting his teeth. He made to grip his bad shoulder with the other hand, but the pain flared up again just from the brush of his fingers. The girl shooed her brother aside and knelt down beside him. “Let’s see it,” she said, and carefully peeled back Lloyd’s jacket, then the neck of his shirt, over the lump of his shoulder. When he dared to look Lloyd saw the skin stretched over the area was skin-burn red, and weirdly shaped.
“It’s dislocated,” the girl confirmed in a hushed voice. She looked up at Lloyd’s distressed face, and her eyes seemed to harden. “Someone did this to you? Why?
What were you doing?”
As soon as Lloyd heard the accusation in her voice – because of course he must’ve done something wrong, if Lloyd Garmadon got hit with a baseball bat hard enough to dislocate his arm it must be because he deserved it – his heart rate spiked through the roof, recognizing that he’d fallen right back into danger, only at the hands of different people.
“I… He…” he stammered. Suddenly, between the pain that was impossible to ignore and the onslaught of fear that claimed him, Lloyd was finding it hard to breathe. “He knew… who I was… He said his mom got hurt… in last week’s attack…”
The girl pressed her lips together at that. She glanced over Lloyd’s head to share a meaningful look with her brother, who nodded in understanding. When she next spoke, her tone of voice was grim and serious, making Lloyd’s insides turn cold.
“Sit up straight. Hold your breath, you don’t want this to hurt worse.”
No, thought Lloyd. No he didn’t. But his shoulder was on fire and the girl was gripping his wrist firmly, holding it away from his body at a perpendicular angle. Her brother had him from the other side, restraining him by the uninjured shoulder. Though they were not much older than him, both pairs of hands felt callused and strong, and lightheaded and frightened as he was, Lloyd knew he wouldn’t be able to escape from them and whatever torture they were about to inflict. So he took the girl’s advice and tried, he tried very hard, to stop his gasping breaths and brace himself for more pain, screwing his eyes shut, though when he felt something being shoved into his mouth and heard the brother order with a warning in his voice, “Bite down on this and don’t let go,” effectively gagging him as well, he thought he might actually pass out with fear. Lloyd was used to harassment, he was used to being ridiculed, cussed at, pushed, tripped, kicked, pelted at with projectiles ranging from mostly harmless to bruise-inducing. But he’d never experienced anything like what he was going through today, the deliberate intention to maim rather than humiliate.
“On the count of three,” said the girl. “One – ”
Abruptly, the pain came before she’d even said two, before Lloyd could calm his panicked thoughts, as she suddenly lifted her leg and braced her foot against his ribs and pulled his arm sharply at the same time. Lloyd’s scream was muffled by whatever was in his mouth, and he felt his teeth wedge into the material as he bit down HARD against the pain.
Reflexively, as he felt his arm being lowered slowly against his side, he opened his mouth and took deep, shuddering breaths. A hand pulled the object out of his mouth, dislodging his teeth from it. Hot tears poured down his cheeks. Another hand wiped them away with a crumpled tissue.
“Hey, you’re okay. That’s better now, right?”
Lloyd looked wildly towards the girl, a plea for any further torment to stop ready at his lips, before he registered what she’d said and focused his awareness on his shoulder. It didn’t hurt. That is, it still throbbed dully, in a way that told him he was going to develop the mother of all bruises later, but the screaming fiery pain he’d felt before was gone. More than that, his arm felt normal again, no longer like it was a door twisted on its hinges, but fit into his shoulder like… well, like a ball and socket.
“Damn,” said the brother, and out of the corner of his eye (he couldn’t turn his head, as the girl had gripped him by the chin so as to finish mopping up the tears from his face) Lloyd saw him unfolding a leather belt and examining the holes Lloyd’s teeth had made in it. Where he’d bitten it, rather than his own tongue. “That was awesome, Nya!”
“Thanks for the assist,” said the sister. “Actually, I’m pretty relieved it worked, haha… my heart was pounding in my chest.”
Mine too, thought Lloyd, though now that he understood the danger was past – in fact that he hadn’t been in any danger at all, at least not from these two – he could feel his heartbeat slow back to a normal rate. He blinked rapidly at the girl still holding his face in a no-nonsense way, studying him as though she were critiquing a painting. She had a mole near her right eye, and dark hair in a bobcut to her chin. Noticing him looking at her, she suddenly seemed self-conscious and quickly let him go, crumpling up the tissue she had been using and throwing it into the dumpster in the corner without looking. She crossed her arms and regarded him thoughtfully.
“Were you scared?” She sniffed. “Guess I should’ve told you what we were doing.”
Lloyd understood the insinuation behind her words immediately. Were you scared? Good. Cause that’s how we feel every time Lord Garmadon attacks. Count your blessings that you only had to experience it for a few seconds rather than years.
Lloyd jumped as a hand landed on his good shoulder. “Alright!” said Spiky. “Let’s go. We’ll ice that and make a sling for you when we get home.” He gestured to Lloyd’s right arm. Once again the pair stood to either side of Lloyd and carefully lifted him up from the crate. When they saw him stand and take a few steps on his own, they withdrew and walked a bit ahead, leading the way out of the alley.
Lloyd followed them down the streets of Ninjago City, through the lesser crowded areas that lead away from the large buildings to the suburbs on the outskirts. He felt nervous the whole way, wondering if he shouldn’t just slip down a side street and try to walk home on his own, which was in the other direction. But the possibility of another angry civilian seeing an opportunity while his arm was incapacitated made him think twice about abandoning his new companions, who, miraculously, seemed to be intent on protecting him; the girl kept turning her head left and right, on the lookout for would-be attackers, and Spiky kept looking back over his shoulder at Lloyd, making sure he didn’t fall behind.
Or maybe, thought Lloyd, that’s just what I want to believe they’re doing. They could just as easily be so alert because they didn’t want to be seen with him. He hung his head glumly, cradling his arm to his middle.
A warm hand gently pressed against his back.
“Don’t worry,” said Spiky next to him, minding his bad side. “We’re almost there. You’ll be home before dinner.”
Lloyd sensed, rather than saw (as he still had his head down), the older boy grin down at him reassuringly. And despite everything he’d been conditioned to believe his whole life, he found himself thinking: Maybe I can trust them.