Chapter 4 - Making Friends and Enemies
Between the chatter of birdsong and the sunlight beaming through her window, Maddy's hopes for sleeping in on Tuesday didn't have a ghost of a chance. She grumbled as she stalked downstairs and plopped down at the kitchen table while Daniel shoved a plate of 98% lean bacon and steaming scrambled eggs in front of her.
"Eat first, wake up later," Daniel said brightly, disappearing as he left to get ready for work.
The morning at school started off innocuously enough. Maddy tried to pretend that the day before hadn't happened, that she hadn't kissed Jared Aimsley, one of the most popular boys at school. And to be honest, her wolf snubbed her nose at the mere human, not much caring for him today. As Maddy threw her rucksack into her locker and rearranged her hair into a ponytail, her wolf silently berated her. Rhydian is your mate. With him you have a future! What do you know or care about some human boy?
She thrust the wolf aside, gritting her teeth as she slammed her locker shut. There, behind the just-slammed door, a shockingly flawless face greeted her. Blonde hair and porcelain skin completed the look with the tall girl's perfectly sculpted features.
"You don't even know who I am, do you?" The girl's blue eyes were frosty, and her posture had the hair on Maddy's neck already standing at attention. "Sabrina McAdams. You might want to remember it, since I'm about to become your worst nightmare."
Maddy wrinkled her nose at her. "Excuse me? I don't even know you."
"You do now." The girl who called herself Sabrina slapped Maddy hard across the cheek, the loud smack echoing in the hallway as Maddy felt all eyes turning their way. The wolf inside her surged forward, and she frantically batted it away, balling up her fists and trying to breathe. If she lashed out at the girl her hands would curl into something not even remotely human. Her heart hammered, her vision turned to blood and she could practically feel the veins in her wrists darkening with the call of the wolf.
"What the hell was that for?"
"That was for kissing my boyfriend." Huh? Jared had a girlfriend? Maddy had practically lived the existence of a hermit in Swan Hill until now, so it was hard to know whether this girl was lying. Maddy hadn't seen Jared with any girls recently, at least as far as she knew…but Maddy also had to admit that she hadn't been the most observant since coming here.
"I don't know who told you we were dating, first of all." But she did know, and Maddy felt a cold fury massing with the knowledge that only Jared could have told her. "Look, just stay away from me you crazy—" Sabrina tried for another slap, and this time Maddy was ready.
The wolfblood girl spun around, moving behind Sabrina even as the blonde girl flailed at empty space. Meanwhile Maddy grasped Sabrina's left wrist from behind, driving it up at a painful angle as she shoved the girl face-first into her locker with a satisfying crunch.
"Girls, stop this at once!" came a furious voice from the opposite end of the hall. Mrs. Schiller's click-clacking high heels became ominously more deafening as they drew closer. "Both of you to Principal Maybrith's office—now!"
Sabrina turned around, her expression buffeted by conflicting tides of disbelief and anger. "I think she broke my nose!" Blood was trickling down the blonde girl's lip and chin, and her hands were clenching and unclenching even as she trembled with what Maddy safely assumed was mounting rage. Maddy took a step back, putting her hands up. But the sight of blood already had her wolfing out, and her inner beast wouldn't be contained. She turned and ran, sprinting for all she was worth. She lurched through the door to the outdoor practice fields and kept running until she'd reached the chain fence at the very end of the main football field.
There Maddy stopped briefly, panting hard while she made sure she wasn't being followed, then quickly leapt the fence and ran for the shelter of the forest. She'd barely made the safety of the tree line when her wolf tore free, her blood vessels and veins obliterated as they transformed and re-solidified in a chaotic burst of wolfblood power.
She stood there, a tawny-furred wolf with eyes that shone luminous in the dappled sunlight. Maddy tore off, a furry blur among the trees. She ran until the pounding in her chest began to ease and the wolf's fight-or-flight response began to ebb. The wolfblood girl dashed and ran until she felt almost exhausted, even in wolf form, until she collapsed in a heap in a wooded clearing, gasping and feeling too many conflicting things at once.
It seemed that ever since fleeing Stoneybridge her wolf had become hypersensitive, less stable. She tried to calm it down, and just when she thought she had it under wraps it would claw its way out again, strong as ever. It was another half hour before she finally brought it completely under control, coughing as she returned to human form.
She sat up, numb as she realized the implications of what had just happened.
So much for keeping a low profile. This was what she got for trusting someone, for agreeing to Jared's little plan. Jared wasn't a good guy after all. He was an asshole. Just another jerk. She stood up on shaky legs, trying to brush off the worst of the vegetation that had made her uniform a complete green-smeared mess. But her mind snapped into focus, and she did the smart thing. She whipped out of her cell and called her mum immediately, told her everything that had happened. She even managed to keep the wobbly tremors out of her voice—mostly.
Within the hour Emma was at Swan Hill High School sitting with her daughter in the principal's office. The assistant principal, Mrs. Schiller, threw the occasional disapproving glare their way, which seemed to pierce the glass partition of Principal Maybrith's office like cannon fire.
Bald-headed, severe-looking Principal Maybrith was in his late 40's, and his beard made him look much older than that as he tapped his pen irritably against the top of his desk.
"I can't have violence in my school, Mrs. James. Your daughter broke a girl's nose today!"
"After she was attacked first," Emma reminded him, careful to keep her tone level. "There is no shortage of witnesses, you've already admitted as much, and as someone new to this school my daughter deserves the benefit of the doubt. She has made no enemies these past three months. She's kept her nose to the grindstone and worked hard. She's getting near-perfect marks in most of her classes."
Principal Maybrith looked exasperated, and he threw up his hands. "That may be, Mrs. James, but something like this cannot go unpunished." He sighed. "She will have detention alongside Sabrina for two weeks every day after school, for one hour. This is nonnegotiable."
Emma nodded and stretched out her hand. "Thank you for being understanding. I promise you, my daughter will not be causing you further trouble." Maddy opened her mouth, furious at Emma's capitulation. She snapped it shut again, but her blood was boiling.
She rose without a word and followed her mum out of the room. As they got in the car, Maddy looked out the window, still livid. The drive home felt like the longest trip of Maddy's life, and she was careful to avoid looking at Emma the entire time. Emma said nothing, which was just as well, and Maddy promptly dashed up to her room, closed the door, locked it, and sat down at her desk. Folding her hands on the desk she put her head down and decided she would not under any circumstances cry.
The rest of the afternoon passed by with blissfully little to prevent Maddy from listening to her favorite music playlists and creating a few new ones. She decided to get her mind off of the disaster the day had been, ignoring her wolf's attempts at consolation. She listened to Evanescence, Plum, and some of her other favorite musicians as the sun reddened in the sky. It was a few minutes after 4:15pm when the inevitable knock came at the door. She pushed back her headphones and gave Emma a deadened stare when she poked her head in.
"What do you want?"
"Jared is here to see you. He's downstairs in the family room."
"Tell him I don't want to see him."
Emma shook her head. "You'll have to tell him yourself. I'm off to the store to buy groceries. I'll get you some of the moose tracks blue ribbon brand you like so much. Text if me if you think of anything else special you want, yes? I know it's been a rough day." She shut the door without waiting for a response, and Maddy felt like screaming but didn't. Instead she put on her pajamas, dignity be damned, and marched downstairs.
Sure enough, there he was. Jared 'the Asshole' Aimsley was sitting on the couch, his deceptive-looking face showing sorrow and concern.
He got up immediately when she walked in. The sincerity in his eyes made Maddy hesitate just long enough for him to get in the first words edgewise.
"Maddy, I heard what happened and I came to apologize. I didn't mean for you to get hurt like this. It's been over a month and a half since Sabrina and I broke up, and the truth is we had an amicable break-up, we were still friends. I had no idea she had this kind of resentment in her or that she would lie and lash out at you. I really didn't."
Maddy sat down on the couch opposite. "So you didn't know that your ex-girlfriend was a crazy rhymes-with-witch and starts with a 'b,' is that it?" Maddy felt a headache coming on, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she rubbed at her temple with both hands. "Look, with friends like you, Jared, maybe I don't need friends. Maybe you should just leave."
She glanced up just in time to see how much her words had stung. Jared blanched, and his handsome face looked like someone had punctured his kidneys with a screwdriver. He wrung his hands and then reached behind him, drawing out a little burgundy box with a violet ribbon wrapped around it.
"Will you at least open this? I brought it to cheer you up."
Grudgingly Maddy took it from Jared's hand, ripping through the wrapping paper and untying the ribbon. Setting those aside, she opened up the velvet container and found inside it a silver locket, shiny and pristine. In the center of the locket a symbol had been etched on the surface with the initials T.N.G.
Maddy looked up, confused. "What does this stand for?"
Jared smiled a little sheepishly. "I had it custom-made for you after school today. It stands for 'Tough New Girl.' My friends helped me come up with a proper nickname for you, and after we heard how you had put Sabrina in her place today that sort of seemed the most appropriate." He winced as he saw Maddy's withering look. "You don't like it?"
Maddy's face softened as she fingered the locket. "No…I do like it actually. I really do. Though I would have been more impressed if you had come up with the nickname on your own." She looked up at him, sighing.
"Does this mean you don't hate me anymore?" Jared stood up and ventured over to sit beside Maddy on the other couch. He tentatively reached his hand out to take one of hers, giving it a gentle squeeze.
Unfortunately that was the moment her wolf chose to have a meltdown. Maddy thought of the trip to Banff, how today's wolf-out pretty much assured that she would be grounded for the next full moon. That one-of-a-kind chance to have her wolf run free with her family beside her had meant so much more after everything else that had happened, after being separated from Rhydian and all her friends. The thought that she had disappointed her parents, made their new start in Swan Hill that much more difficult, and that her wolf would be chained deep inside her for even longer, all of those things conspired to break her composure.
She started to cry, the tears coming in halting bursts as she put her hands over her eyes.
"Whoa, hey there." Jared's expressive face tightened with concern as he tucked Maddy against his side, letting her cry on his chest without saying another word. He just sat there, stroking her back with one hand and rubbing her arm with the other, just being a comforting presence.
Surprisingly, Maddy discovered that just made all the difference. The worst of the heaving sobs soon fled, and she sniffled embarrassingly, swiping a Kleenex from the tissue box just behind the couch. She blew her nose and then, still blushing, looked over at Jared.
"I feel like the biggest idiot in the universe," he said. He reached out again and grabbed her hand, enfolding it in both of his. "Let me make it up to you?"
"How's that?" she choked out.
"Let me take you up to Banff next weekend. My parents are out of town, so it would just be you, me, and my best friends Mace and Lyssa."
Maddy chuckled at the irony. It came out more as a sniffled wheeze.
"Yeah…I'm pretty sure I'll be grounded that weekend thanks to what happened today. What else you got?"
Jared squeezed Maddy's hand again, this time brushing a forgotten tear from her cheek.
"OK, how about I be your servant for a week. I'll go wherever you want. I'll take you out to eat, show you a good movie or two. My friends are awesome too. You can hang out with us at my place. We can play pool, ping pong, watch movies, soak in my parents' hot tub. You name it. There's also a really cool hiking trail at Eagle Glen Falls I could take you on."
The wolfblood girl slowly let a smile spread across her face. She thought of the two-week detention and made a quick decision.
"You can be my servant. Make it two weeks."
"Two weeks?" Jared protested.
"That's how long I have detentions for," Maddy said pointedly and kept up her glare until Jared folded.
"OK. Two weeks."
Maddy squeezed Jared's hand back and took a deep, calming breath. "Jared?"
When Jared looked up the wolfblood girl leaned over, kissing him on the cheek.
"Thanks for coming over tonight. I'm sorry I beat up your ex-girlfriend." Maddy tried to hold back her grin as Jared's own grew bigger and bigger.
"Yeah…well, I should be thanking you. I didn't know she was insane, jealous and violent, so yeah…I'm pretty sure I'm better off without her." Jared started to reach out, and Maddy could see him hesitate. He brushed his thumb affectionately across her cheek. "Maddy James, has anyone ever told you that you're beautiful even with the whole 'swollen-eyes-post-crying' look?"
Maddy frowned and batted his hand away. "No, probably because most people are smart enough to know that I'd smack them senseless." Jared quickly scooted away as Maddy made a lunge for him. Soon the two were laughing as she chased him. She was threatening him between fresh bouts of laughter, and it was somehow the freest she had felt in a long, long time.
Only after she'd caught him and boxed his ears did she let him go. She walked him to the front door and wished him a good night. Then Maddy watched Jared walk over and slide into his silver sedan, saw the dim splotch slowly back up into the darkness as she stood by the doorway just thinking. Biting her lip, Maddy couldn't help but wonder. Wonder and worry.