Chapter Text
Maxine Mayfield has always been strange.
She liked to play video games, she liked to skateboard, she liked to run off at night and eat squirrels while howling at the moon.
Average things, in her opinion.
But she has a secret. A secret that is totally unrelated to the latter activity.
Maxine Mayfield is a werewolf.
It wasn’t as hard to hide as the movies make it out to be. But it wasn’t easy mentally. She would always be an outcast, doomed to never feel the presence of a pack.
That fact weighed down on her heavily.
No matter how much she searched, smelled or called in the middle of the night, there were no werewolves in her town.
That figures, though. What kind of real werewolf would choose to live by the ocean instead of in the forest with a pack?
As much as Max loved California and the ocean, she would trade it all for a pack to call home. After all, living with her step-family and her dismissive mother wasn’t much of a home anyway.
She’s always been a lone wolf, in every sense of the phrase.
She’d had a friend before, a sweet kid named Nate.
Poor Nate. He was so small, innocent. But brave, brave enough to stand up to Billy for her sake.
That didn’t last long.
She still remembered the looks he gave her after that, avoiding her like the plague, arm in a splint.
She knew then that she was doomed to be alone.
The days turned to weeks, weeks to months. She was a ghost, going to school, skating, going to the arcade, running through the woods on all fours, and then back home to repeat the cycle.
It got easier the more she pretended it didn’t bother her.
School was frustrating.
Usually, it was easy for Max to tune out the incessant taunting of idiots who had nothing better to do.
Until October 18th. She was already having a shitty time that day. Billy wouldn’t stop insulting her that morning, and he was being pissy in the car, too. He’d gotten in an argument with Neil the night before, and decided to make it her problem.
Max was simply walking to her locker, when the resident school asshole, Josh, stalks up behind her.
Max whips around, already having sensed him, fixing him a glare.
He barks out a laugh. “See, the freak does have spidey senses. You owe me.” He glares at his friend, who snickers.
Max snaps. “Oh, bite me!” She twists around, preparing to leave, when Josh raises his hand again.
He grabs her wrist.
She flinches, remembering this morning when Billy grabbed her wrist and yelled at her.
Her body reacted faster than her brain, and before she knew it, her teeth were in his hand, shaking it around.
She could taste blood and hear screams of pain and shock.
And then she was promptly landed in the principals office.
She was more worried about what would happen with her family than anything. She didn’t feel sorry about it, he would be fine.
The movies make it seem like one will turn into a werewolf after being bitten by one, but that was the stupidest thing Max had ever heard.
As she sits there, awaiting Neil and her mother’s arrival, she bides her time by counting the ceiling tiles.
One, two, three, four, five, oh there they are.
The door is slammed open, and she can’t help but wince.
From then on, Max is declared expelled. All because that dickwad decided to put his hands on her. But of course, it was her fault.
It’s all over the newspapers after that, “Hargrove-Mayfield kid bites another kid in school.”
Words spread like wildfire.
Her whole family was unfathomably pissed with her. They even got sued.
Neil and Billy fight more.
Neil blames Billy for not keeping Max in check, and hurts him.
Billy hurts Max as a result.
It was a never-ending cycle.
Good thing werewolves heal quickly.
Physically, at least.
Neil promptly decides that they are leaving California, and that he managed to get a job in a small town called Hawkins. It was all the way in Indiana. That was all she needed to know.
Though, the redhead couldn’t really complain. They’d made it obvious it was her fault.
Billy wouldn’t even look at her as they loaded their bags into their cars and drove off.
He was silent the entire car ride.
Max could only stare at the moon, praying for a better life.
She hoped the stars could hear her.
.
.
.
Max was sitting in the chair of the principal’s office, her leg bouncing anxiously. The office of Hawkins Middle was much different than her school in San Diego. More welcoming. But it didn’t ease her nerves.
Her mother and Neil sit beside her.
In front of them was Principal Coleman, who was inspecting Max’s file with interest.
“She’s an exceptional student, with no history of violence before then.” He nods respectfully. “So long as you promise nothing like this will ever happen again, we’d be happy to take her.”
Neil nods. “Maxine will never harm another student again.” He shoots her a cold, evil glare. “Will you, Maxine?”
Max’s lips press against each other as she tenses, and averts her eyes. “No, sir.” She bites out. She hates this. She hates every second of this.
She’s been watched like a hawk ever since October 18th.
It was now October 29th. The day before her first day at her new school.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Thankfully, they let her go to the arcade, at least.
With a smirk on her face, she enters with quarters in her pockets and searches for her favorites.
She was, of course, a master at Pac Man. She watches some greasy nerd play it and smirks with amusement as he loses. Only 300,000 points, pathetic.
She shoos him aside and completely blows everyone out of the water with her skill.
She could have gone further, but she eventually gets bored and simply throws the game, ending at 600,000 points. The crowd is disappointed, but she is not, leaving her mark in the #1 spot as MADMAX.
She walks away, her quest not done yet. She hasn’t yet found her pride and joy. A grin covers her face as she discovers her favorite game.
Dig Dug.
Cracking her knuckles, she decides tonight, she is going to make all of these nerds cry.
As ferocious as she was when she’d chase down a rabbit in the woods, she plays.
Another crowd forms, but she tunes them out.
She surpasses the #1 spot and then some, going as far as she can until she loses. 751,300 points. Perfect.
She hopes this “Dustin” kid lives up to his name, because he’s getting left in it.
She leaves her mark once again, and moves on.
Then, her ears pick up something interesting.
“Whatever! I’m still tops on Centipede and Dig Dug!”
“Are you sure about that?”
She peeks around the corner, only to see a nerd wailing to his friends and the arcade employee about his lost high score.
Max smirks. Boo-hoo.
She slinks out of the doors, still faintly listening.
“Who’s MADMAX?”
“Better than you.”
She smiles proudly.
She skates home with a sigh, taking in her surroundings.
It was so… small town. She skates past the mom and pop shops with an eyeroll.
She can’t help but think about her father, and how he was doing in Los Angeles.
That was the one thing she regretted about biting that kid.
Now she’d probably never get to see her dad again.
She has some conflicting thoughts about him now that she’s grown more into her wolf side, though. She undoubtedly got it from him, after all.
Well, she couldn’t be positive. It was just the process of elimination. Her mother, for sure, had no clue. Otherwise, she’d have said something by now, especially after Max’s incident.
A sharp pang hits her chest. Did he have a pack? Did he willingly keep her from it after the divorce?
She tries not to think about it as the wolf cries in her chest.
She felt so disconnected from both sides of herself. She wasn’t truly human, and she wasn’t truly wolf.
It hurts, it really hurts.
A sigh escapes her as she diverts her path to go explore the woods. As she walks deeper and deeper into the woods, she kicks off her shoes and sweater and leaves them there with her board.
She closes her eyes, letting herself morph.
She thinks about the breeze on her fur, the grass on her paws, and suddenly, she’s on all fours and sprinting through the forest.
This was the one place she could feel free, even if short lived. She runs around, mapping out every inch of her new territory.
She also keeps her ears pricked for other wolves. Although it was unlikely, she couldn’t help but wish.
All she finds is a junkyard, a giant quarry, some coyotes and a cabin. All four were uninteresting to her, so she sprints back to the spot she’d left her stuff.
She shifts back to normal, letting out a soft sigh of disappointment.
She really was alone.
She skates back home, listening to the sounds of the crickets chirping.
It’s a little later than she’d have liked to be home by, but she sneaks into her room through her window and curls up in bed, immediately exhausted.
Laid on her back and staring at the blank ceiling, she closes her eyes and lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding all night long.
Nothing was new.
It wasn’t like she’d suddenly find a pack just because she had to bite the shit out of some asshole kid.
She just had to keep floating through life.
That was all she could do at this point.