the butterfly effect | l. garmadon

sixteen

  Chen looked up at the call of his nickname. His younger sister, Bethany, stood at the door with her favourite stuffed doll in her arms. He pulled himself up with a smile when she entered.

  "Hey, Bee," he greeted. The little girl clambered onto his lap, curling against his chest and hugging the doll. He hugged her just as tight.

  What kind of role model was he being for Bethany? He didn't want his little sister to turn twisted and cruel, like path he'd been going down. He wanted her to keep her sense of kindness and selflessness. It was so rare to have such abundance of it in a person nowadays, and Chen was walking proof of the rest of the population.

  His brown eyes slid back to his laptop's screen. Another Green Ninja ad played on the side of the website. It watched him, and all he saw was the fury of an all-powerful man with red eyes that haunted those who hurt the people he cared about. That was Lloyd unbridled.

  Chen's arms tightened around Bethany. He could understand it - the protective rage. His back still ached from when he was slammed against the brick wall with the front of his shirt in Lloyd's fist. He was terrifying in that moment, a creature of raw anger. Chen couldn't even blame him.

  And Y/n - Y/n, who'd he'd mocked. Who'd he'd insulted and indirectly injured and didn't even take the opportunity to blame him, even thought she should've. Y/n who'd bumped into him the other day with tears in her eyes as she fled some kind of scene. At least he picked up the keychain he noticed she'd dropped and brought it back to her - even though it did entail ditching his friends and racing through the rain.

  He had to make it up to her, somehow. Chen didn't want to be mean. He didn't realise how mean he'd become, and it sickened him.

  The apology Chen made was weak. It wasn't even to Lloyd, either. And it could be the best apology in the world, and it still wouldn't make up for the years he'd bullied him and his friends.

  "Green Ninja!" Bethany called, pointing a hammy-fisted hand at the computer. Chen followed her gaze and found a new story of the Green Ninja popping up on the side of the website. Lloyd. That's Lloyd.

  "Yeah," Chen sighed. "Yeah, it is."

  He was antsy. Anxious. He knew the Green Ninja's identity and he didn't know what to do - or know what the Green Ninja would do to him. So when Bethany was called for a bath, he went for a walk to get rid of the excess energy making his nerves prickle and palms clammy.

  This gave Lloyd a certain kind of immunity over him, Chen realised with a sudden wash of fear. He was in Lloyd's hand to do with as he pleased - Lloyd didn't have to conceal his power around him anymore, and Chen knew just how powerful of a guy he really was now. He could threaten him to stay quiet as easily as flicking a finger. He could follow through with that threat as easily as blinking.

  It all made Chen's breath shorten in fear. He usually wasn't a nervous guy, he was used to things coming easy for him. He had a big group of friends, a loving family, he got good grades and was the captain of the cheerleading team. His life was good and worry-free.

  But this... this had terror tangling down his throat.

  And it must've been palpable enough to lure sharks, because a sharp-voiced, shadowed stranger caught him in their caged grasp.