She is not bad

Chapter 28 : Castle party

Later in the day, Max and her friends were going to the castle with two cars. Joyce accepted to let her car to Will, even if she didn't really like when he was partying in the middle of the week, and Dustin's mother let hers. They took a long path between trees before reaching an area with gravels to park the car. The castle was strangely quiet. The music seemed to come from under the building. The friends frowned to each other before noticing the lights. They approached the entrance, took the few steps before entering. The first thing they all noticed was the smoke filling the place. They kept going downstairs between the people who were smoking and looking at them, like if they knew they had nothing to do here. The colored lights brought them to the principal room where people were dancing on the dancefloor while a DJ was on the scene and other people were sitting on U-shaped sofas. Max looked around, wondering what they were doing here, when Lucas nudged her and showed her a little bit further. The redhead turned her head and recognized Jane talking with another girl. Max thought she was flirting until she saw her holding out a bag of pills that she gave to the other girl who exchanged it with bills. The brunette took a long puff of her spliff before blowing the smoke away and turning her head in direction of the group of friends. She frowned before bursting in laughs and approaching them.

- "What are you doing here, lost birds!? 'Wanna discover the world of garbage people!? 'Wanna be a loser!? A goner!? Junkies!? Be careful, people here are source of problems. I mean, we are rats, right!?" Jane said, losing her amused tone while she was talking.

The brunette looked at all of them before focusing her angry eyes on Max who was clenching her jaw, remembering having said those things about her. Even if the redhead was thinking every word she said, she realized that telling them right in front of Jane was not a very good idea.

- "Try to have fun. And watch your cups."

Jane flicked Max's nose before walking away to another girl. Max frowned and rubbed her nose before looking at her friends who just shrugged, except Bev who was widely smiling, like if she was relieved and happy to see Jane here. Max didn't say anything, she was too glad to see her friend smiling. They walked in the loud room and managed to reach the sofas and sit on one of them. There was already a blonde girl on it, but she didn't mind having some company. Dustin asked all of them what they wanted to drink before standing with Mike and going to the bar. Lucas, Beverly, Will, and Max looked at each other, not really knowing what to do. They could barely talk; the loud electro music would cover their voices. They looked at the blonde girl next to them and wondered why she was here too. She was on her phone, sometimes looking at the crowd like if she was searching for someone. But Bev and Max both recognized the girl at the same time, so Bev decided to talk to her:

- "You're Jane's friend, right? Um...Mallory?"

- "Um, yeah, that's me. I'm sorry, do I know you?" the blonde girl frowned.

- "Oh, um, no, not really. We saw you in music class one time."

- "Oh yeah, I remember! You're the girl who lived with her, right?"

- "Yeah, for one week," Bev smiled.

- "She likes you. She will probably not tell you, even if she is trying to make some effort."

- "She actually did! And I like her too, I mean, she welcomed me in her home, I guess I can't hate her after that. I'm glad I had the chance to learn more about her somewhere else than school."

- "Yeah, she must be unbearable at school!"

- "She is!" Max intervened.

Mallory and Beverly stopped talking to turn to Max with a frown.

- "What? It's true! I'm still mad at her for the drawings!"

- "You're the annoying redhead, right?" Mallory asked.