MARLEY // Max Mayfield

Lab Dogs

No thought ran through Marley's head as she dropped the binoculars to the metal roof, grabbed her pole and jumped to the grass-covered ground, her landing light and soft. She swung her weapon around and sprinted over to her brother, pressing her back to his as he stopped and stared at Dart.

"Marley!? What are you doing!?" He whispered harshly.

"Me? What are you doing!? Steve, I'm not about to let you fucking die and leave me alone again," Marley hissed back. Steve bit the inside of his cheek and Marley spun to face the direction he was, her pole raised and ready to strike Dart if he got so much as an inch closer.

"Go back to the bus," Steve ordered, pushing at her chest, she glanced backwards, seeing Max staring at her through the slits in the bus's windows, eyes wide with fear. She turned back around, wiping the image from her mind, willing for it to not crumble her resolve.

"No."

"Marley...do as I say."

"No!"

"Steve! Marley! Watch out!" Lucas yelled. Marley kept her eyes on her brother, while he continued staring at dart, nailed bat raised.

"A little busy here!" He shouted back, his eyes locked on the one before him.

"Three o'clock! Three o'clock!" Lucas screamed. Marley spun around just in time to smash a Demogorgon away from her, sending it flying into the green around them with a horrifying screech.

"Steve! Marley!" Dustin screamed, the bus doors swinging open with a loud thud, "Abort! Abort!"

Marley looked suddenly crazed. She flipped her pole up in the air, spinning it once and catching it, smashing it through another Demogorgons face, its blood splattered through the air, decorating her arms as she ran for another one, kicking it into a broken car door and then stabbing the ridged end of her pole in its open, crying, petal mouth. "Fuck you!"

"Marley!" Steve and Max screamed at the same time, trying to get her attention but the girl was contained in her own head, her fighting instinct going through the roof with no chance of flight popping up in her mind any time soon.

She spun around, punching one of the four-legged beasts in the face and punting another. One of them pounced, pushing her to the ground with a loud thud. A flash of a much larger Demogorgon flitted through her eyes and she faltered a second giving the monster a chance to strike.

Her pole locked in between its mouth and she pushed, eventually getting it off of her with some, strange amount of difficulty thanks to a throbbing pain in her stomach. With a bold swing, she hit the beast into an open rusted truck bed, it's head smashing through the already pretty broken back window.

This was it, this was how she coped. Taking her pent up anger, sadness any emotion she could think of and letting it out against one of the things that hurt her the most. At least that's what she wanted it to feel like but instead, she just felt worse because she was realising, no matter what she did, no matter how many sleepless nights she had endured, no matter how much pain she had gone through, no matter how badly her mind was fucked, so much so that she could no longer cry, it wouldn't change her past.

Wouldn't change what her parents did. She hit another. Wouldn't change the fact that they had sent her to a glorified paedophile ring in England. And another. Wouldn't change the fact she could no longer cry. Again. Wouldn't change what happened in the upside-down. She let one pounce on her just so she could get the satisfaction of beating it down. Wouldn't change what she did, what she became. She yelled at the top of her lungs, swatting away one with her bat and another with her leg. Wouldn't change anything.