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Lloyd couldn’t remember a time before Darkley’s, he couldn’t remember the woman’s face who was apparently his mother. He was only two and a half when that woman abandoned him there. Lloyd didn’t even refer to himself as a boy until a year after the incident at Darkleys school for bad boys.
It was the final straw, the final “good” deed before they threw the young 7 and 1/2 year old out into the desert. He remembered it as clear as the day he met Pythor.
The older boys had destroyed Brads flower garden, teasing and calling him a whiny good girl. It had been Brads coping mechanism for when the teachers abused him. Plus it benefited Darnley’s, it kept the authorities at bay from investigating the abuse allegations, because no nice looking school could possibly abuse its students. Lloyd had kept out of the fight until the older boys had nearly beaten Brad to death.
“Hey! Cut it out! You’re going to kill him!” Lloyd yelped as he jumped in between the ’fight’.
“Look” One of the older boys barked, “Brads puny lil girlfriend has to defend him.”
The other older boys started cackling.
“I am not Brads girlfriend!” Lloyd hissed at them. Earning another snicker from the boys around them.
“Sure you’re not, pipsqueak, I bet you definitely won’t go cry to the teachers that ‘the big old mean kids’ almost killed your boyfriend” Another boy snarked at him.
Lloyd shrunk back, closer to Brad as the older boys advanced closer to them. Lloyd had been the youngest ‘student’ ever to attend Darnley’s. The minimum age to ‘attend’ was 6 years old.
He was also the most malnourished kid there. You had to fight for food, and even fight to eat said food. And lloyd being smaller and weaker than everyone else there, he rarely got anything to eat. And when he could he’d survive off of the schools plump rats that roamed in between the walls.
So to put it simply, he wasn’t the best human meat shield to “protect” Brad from the older boy’s wrath. Lloyd knew it was stupid, he knew it would only result in him getting beaten up, and a trip to that awful nurses office. But he didn’t care, he didn’t care as long as it ment they’d leave Brad alone.
“Pick on someone your own size!” Lloyd had hissed ferociously.
The biggest of the older boys stepped forward towards Lloyd, and looked down at him.
“I don’t see anyone else here to pummel into a pulp, but you” the kid growled.
The rest of that day was a blur in Lloyd’s mind, all he could remember after that was getting beaten up, being sent to the nurse’s office and then thrown out into the blistering heat of the surrounding desert.
There Lloyd was, beaten, bruised and starving as he aimlessly trudged towards Jamanakai Village.