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Lloyd thinks he always knew that he was never going to make it to eighteen.
Hearing it out loud, though, seeing the papers, makes it all the more real. Principal Noble sitting across from him, a social worker on one side and a lawyer on the other. Empty words and hollow condolences.
“We’re sorry,” they say.
“You’ve reached your potential. As far as you can go,” they say.
“The money only stretches so far,” they say.
“You understand,” they say.
“Wait,” he manages to get out. “I’m not a ward of the state. My mother, she needs to sign off on this.”
The social worker gives him a pitying look. “She has. She was the first person we had to get permission from.”
Lloyd white-knuckles the edge of the chair. “So, that’s it? I’m being unwound?”
He says it like a question, even though he already knows the answer. Their silence is answer enough.
Unwinding is part of life. He knows that. He’s had friends, family be unwound. It’s different, though, much more real, when it’s you. You never expect it to be you.
“It’s alright to be afraid, Lloyd,” the social worker says. “Change is scary.”
“I think dying is a little bit more than change,” he snaps.
The lawyer sighs. “Please, Mr. Garmadon. It is not dying, and I think everybody here would be more comfortable if you didn’t refer to it as such. One hundred percent of you will be alive, just in a divided state. You know that.”
“I think I would be more comfortable if you weren’t killing me and taking my body! If I die, I want it to be as me, not as bits and pieces of other people,” Lloyd growls, standing up.
“Please sit down, Lloyd,” says Principal Noble. “You are not dying. You will simply be in a divided state.”
“You can shove your divided state right up your ass. Call it what it is, at least.” He marches out of the room, not looking back even when he hears the adults clearly talking about him.
He goes to the roof, the only spot he knows they won’t find him. No one else ever comes up here. He considers running away. No, the Juvey-cops would catch him before he got too far. Even if he did manage to escape, where would he go? He has no money, no connections, and no way out. He’s trapped.
“Happy birthday, Morro,” he mutters. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.”
His older cousin was unwound a month ago, after getting into a fight on Lloyd’s behalf. They were in this together, they promised each other. They promised each other that they would make it out. Morro broke his promise, but he made Lloyd swear before they took him away that he would make it out and live, for him.
Today would have been Morro’s eighteenth birthday. He was so close. He would have made it out.
On the spur of the moment, Lloyd makes a decision. He’s not going to just sit here and accept his fate. He’s going to do everything that he can to keep his promise to Morro. He’s going to make it out, and he’s going to live.
He climbs down from the roof, using the old, rusted fire escape to lower himself close enough to the ground to jump. And jump he does, hitting the ground and rolling to absorb the impact. He jumps to his feet and immediately takes off running, silently thanking God that the yard is fairly empty. No one notices him and no one tries to stop him.
He reaches the fence that keeps the Darkley’s residents inside and quickly scales it, dropping to the ground on the other side and looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was following him. He can’t believe his luck. He actually made it.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
Shit. Shit, shit.
Lloyd takes off running again, getting out of sight of whoever yelled at him. He sprints down the sidewalk, dodging people left and right. He turns a corner and sees a dead end, but behind the road is a forest, with thick trees going on as far as he can see. He makes a beeline for the trees, trying to disappear into the tree line.
He reaches the tree line, crashing through the brush until he feels safe enough to look back. As he looks back over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t followed, he crashes into something solid and goes down hard.
As he’s lying on the ground, trying to get his bearings, he feels someone grab him by the shirt collar and yank him up into a standing position. He opens his mouth to complain but immediately shuts it when the guy who grabbed him presses a knife to his throat.
“What are you doing here?” the guy growls. “You have one chance to explain yourself before I gut you like a fish.”
“You’re an Unwind, aren’t you?” Lloyd asks, regretting it as soon as the words leave his mouth. Fuck, that was a horrible opening line. The knife digs deeper into his neck. He feels blood beginning to trickle down.
“You really need to know when to shut your mouth.”
“Fuck,” Lloyd grits out, basically holding his breath. “That’s not what I meant. I’m an Unwind too. I’m on the run. If you don’t kill me, that would be amazing.”
The guy’s grip on the knife loosens slightly. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t, but I swear I’m not lying.”
Lloyd finally gets a good look at the guy, and his breath catches. He has a long, thin scar cutting from his right eyebrow down to the edge of his mouth. Lloyd has seen many scars in his life; that’s not what surprises him. It’s the guy’s eyes. One of them is dark brown, and the one cut by the scar is a bright, piercing green. A familiar green. Lloyd has seen that green so many times, he has it memorized.
This guy has one of Morro’s eyes.
A familiar feeling of anger starts to churn in Lloyd’s gut. This guy, this stranger, has a piece of Morro. No one should have a piece of Morro except Morro. He should be whole.
Without thinking, Lloyd shoves the guy. Hard. He stumbles back, looking at Lloyd with the beginnings of flickering anger in his eyes. Morro’s eye. “The fuck was that for?”
“That was for my cousin,” Lloyd snarls. “He was unwound a month before his eighteenth birthday. You have his eye.”
The guy brings a hand up under his eye. “Hey, I didn’t ask for this shit, man. I didn’t have a choice. Don’t forget I’m an Unwind too. I’d rather your cousin be here and I be half blind.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He huffs out a breath. “Fuck. We really started off on the wrong foot, didn’t we?” He holds out a hand. “I’m Kai.”
Lloyd shakes it. “Lloyd.”
“Here, follow me. My sister and I are both Unwinds, we ran away together. She’s just a little bit further into the forest. We set up camp and shit.”
Lloyd follows Kai deeper into the woods, hoping that he’s telling the truth and isn’t actually a serial killer or something.
They enter into a clearing, where a girl sits in front of a fire. She looks up as they enter, her eyes narrowing with suspicion as she sees Lloyd. “Who’s this?” she asks.
“Nya, this is Lloyd,” Kai says, gesturing between them. “Lloyd, Nya.”
“Hey,” Lloyd greets awkwardly.
“He’s an Unwind too,” Kai explains. “He’s with us now.”
“Is he now?” Nya asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Be nice,” Kai chides, sitting down beside Nya and gesturing for Lloyd to do the same. He does, sitting on the other side of Kai.
They just sit and stare into the fire for a while, until Lloyd finds himself speaking up. “I lived at this boarding school. My mom dumped me there when I was a kid. There’s new kids coming in every day, and not enough money to keep the school running. Kids get unwound for disciplinary problems, trying to run away, or just to free up space. That’s what happened to me. Their money only stretches so far, and the kids take the fall for it. I think all of my friends except for one got unwound. My cousin, too. He got in a fight with some kids on my behalf about a month ago, and all it got him was unwinding. Today would’ve been his eighteenth birthday.” He gestures to Kai. “Kai over there got one of his eyes.”
His story brings on a heavy silence for a few minutes, until Nya speaks up. “Our parents were never really around. Kai basically raised me. One day, I guess they just decided it would be less work to have us unwound. They came home for a weekend and were being weirdly nice. Once they left again, I found the papers in my mom’s dresser drawer. One copy for each of us. They couldn’t even be bothered to tell us or stay until it happened. We ran away the night after we found out.”
Kai nods. “We’ve been on the run for about two weeks. You have to keep moving. Those Juvey-cops are fucking vigilant. If you stay in one spot too long, they get suspicious and start sending people after you. They’ve got catching AWOLs down to a science. Know all the common hiding places and shit.”
“We’re trying to get to a safe house,” Nya adds. “There’s some people out there who won’t turn in Unwinds right away. Not common, unfortunately, but they’re there.”
“You should come with us,” Kai suggests. “Safety in numbers and all that. If we stick together, you’ve got a better chance of not getting caught. You in?”
Kai and Nya both put their fists in the middle of their little circle, above the fire. They both look at Lloyd.
He puts his fist in with theirs. Happy birthday, Morro. Guess I’ll be able to keep my promise after all. “I’m in.”