☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

NINETEEN;

PERSON OF INTEREST

Scott had been the first one outside of the hospital, his mind rushing with scenarios and possibilities as to what could have happened to Danny back inside apart from the obvious collapsed lung. The teenage boy shouldn't have been throwing up mistletoe. He was also concerned about the growing realization that his mother might have to handle all of those people, managing and taking care of them so that they would actually continue living.

It was too hectic.

He needed to take a step back, take a deep breath, and actually think about all that has happened to him in the past few days. There wasn't much he could remember though, all of it was whirled into a blur that mushed together. The night at the motel, the flares, the sacrifices, each and every small piece was scattered around in his head.

"I know you're not going to believe me, but I didn't do anything."

The werewolf's back arched at the voice and he glanced over to see that Ethan was coming out of the hospital, hands raised high as a sign of surrender. Scott couldn't help but think the twin was lying, only for the very reason that not a single true thing has come from his mouth so far. Or, at the very least, a humane one.

He didn't see why Ethan would change all of a sudden, why any of them would.

Scott frowned deeply, staring at the alpha. "All I know is that the minute that you got here, you went right for Danny and your brother went for Sage."

"We're not going to hurt them," Ethan denied, shaking his head once as if the thought of harming either was an absolute atrocity itself.

"Why should I believe you?"

Ethan didn't waste a second before answering, already plenty aware that what he was admitting could very well change all of the cards. His mouth should have stayed shut, he should have gone on with his night, but the words slipped easily.

"Because we knew one of them was going to be important to you, and now we know it's Sage."

☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

Sage Connelly was a walking bomb.

Sage Connelly also knew she was a walking bomb. Ever since she saw the hooded figure through the flames at the motel, she was putting pieces together here and there about what might be happening to her. She knew enough about mistletoe to know that it is most commonly used by druids, her mother being a prime example of that.

It didn't take long for her to reach the conclusion that whoever, or whatever, the Darach was wanted her dead. Not many people walked around claiming to be dark druids, sacrificing people left and right like it was no big deal. No, it definitely didn't take long for her to conclude that the Darach wanted Sage dead.

What did take a long time to conclude was how she felt about it.

A part of her, whatever small or large part that might be, didn't know how to feel about dying. It might have been better, she supposed, to die by someone else's hand rather than her own. Maybe it wouldn't hurt the surrounding victims as horrifically if she died differently. The conflict in her mind was enough to drive her insane, a resident evil evolving inside of her ever since Glen Capri.

The blonde lifted her head up, hands tightly gripping the sink in the bathroom of the loft. She didn't know how long she had been in there, possibly hours just splashing water on her face as if it would take away the tears and the blood stains. It could have been minutes, though, and she was exaggerating her thoughts just like always.

Swallowing hard, allowing the water droplets to fall down her face, Sage took a single glance at the mirror to see all she has become in the past seventeen years. She stared at her face, the young reflection of her deceased mother, and she stared at the scars buried beneath her skin. It was hard to believe that in the seven years since her family's death, she has changed so much.

Aiden had showed her that tonight.

Standing beside him again, laughing with him over the cruelest of things, she realized that she had morphed into someone new over the last seven years. She had dragged Derek away from the flames before she could even mourn her parents, she ran away from the flames just before the heat hit her, she left before she could ever actually feel remorse for not trying to save her family.

She fell in love, too, and she couldn't help but feel as though that was an injustice in itself. She fell in love with a boy that knew nothing of the world until it had been ripped away from him. She fell in love with the warm exterior of a, now, lifeless person. Aiden had been the one person in her life that became everything she was afraid of herself, he became the nightmares inside of her head.

Yet, when she looked opposite of him, she saw the boy that she is in love with. She sees Stiles, the only light in her black life and the only thing keeping her from the ever-growing madness. She sees a boy that had been cursed to love a disease, a girl that found loving someone harder than hating. Stiles had been given the short hand in the situation, forced to experience heartbreak a million times and one.

Sage just felt herself drowning in the emotions she, so dearly, wished she could turn off.

"Sage?"

She moved her eyes from the mirror, blinking a few times before rubbing her face to try and rid herself of the water and tears. Once she had somewhat accomplished that, she pulled open the door of the bathroom to see that Cora was standing outside, a worn expression on her face.

Smiling lightly, Sage nodded at Cora. "Hey, what's up?"

The younger girl looked weary, almost afraid to ask what was playing on her lips. Ever since earlier when the alpha had come into their home, she had been hesitant to ask the question she was most terrified of finding out the answer to.

"Are you going to tell me how you know one of them? How you didn't tell me that you knew one of the people that held me inside a vault for three months?" Cora asked, or rather hissed, towards Sage.

Sage was defeated, the smile falling from her face as she let out a deep sigh. The mistake she made two years ago was continuing to haunt her every single day. Had she not fallen in love with Aiden, maybe she wouldn't be playing on battle lines and crossing boundaries between the murder business.

"He's just someone from my past," Sage said, using the same excuse as she had with Stiles a while back.

Cora, however, was not as easily convinced as Stiles Stilinski. "Bullshit. Who is he, Sage?"

Sage sighed, her head pounding as she moved over to her bed to sit down. Not only was she exhausted after throwing up in the middle of the street earlier, but she knew that standing near Cora while explaining was not the best idea at the moment.

"I met him two years ago," Sage began, pulling her bottom lip back with her teeth. "It was whenever Derek, Laura, and I were moving from Seattle. He was just a beta then, himself and his brother both. About a month or so after meeting him, I started dating him."

Cora's eyebrows shot up. "You dated him?"

"I dated him," Sage repeated, playing with her fingers. "And I loved him. We were together for about ten months, and then he left with Deucalion. Two months after that, I was standing at the Hale house and remembering when it burned to the ground."

"Okay," Cora started, slowly walking over to sit next to Sage. "You dated a guy that has killed over twenty people, turns into a mega wolf with his brother, and is wanting for Derek to kill, not only me, but Boyd or Isaac?"

Sage paused a second, her eyes shifting from the picture in her room over to Cora. "He wasn't always a bad guy. People aren't born murderers, someone manipulates them until they become one."

"So, Deucalion manipulated him to leave you and slaughter innocent people?"

Sage frowned deeply, trying not to remember back to the memories she had shut out long ago. Rarely did she ever recall back to the night everything changed between herself and the twins, mostly for the very reason of how vivid it actually was. She didn't like envisioning the blood and the pain.

She knew eventually she would have to remember, though.

Sage swallowed before speaking. "Aiden wasn't just manipulated, Cora. He had his will to live stripped away from him. That's what Deucalion does. He threatens to obliterate any and all happiness that his pack might have. I'm still surprised to this day that he didn't order the twins to kill me."

"Is that why he left?" Cora asked, more curious than angry towards the blonde's decisions. She knew that Sage was only fifteen back then, which meant she couldn't judge her.

Sage shrugged. "Leaving was his choice. His old pack treated him and his brother like they were meat. His wrath for revenge is what originally broke up whatever we had, not him leaving me. Besides, I'm not too sure I would have been able to look him in the eyes two years ago."

"Why?"

"Because he wasn't the person I fell in love with."

Cora, herself, frowned as well. She had noticed when she first saw Sage that the blonde wasn't the same as she had been ten years ago. She expected for the girl to be different, but actually listening to how much has happened to her made her think even more about the transition Sage made.

She wasn't the little girl that protected Cora anymore, she was stronger.

Before Cora could ask anymore questions about Sage's former relationship with Aiden, the blonde's cell began to ring from its place on her drawer. The blonde let out a sigh, rubbing at her face in exhaustion before standing up and answering the phone.

"Hello?" Sage asked, trying to keep her eyes open.

"Sage, it's Scott."

The girl snorted. "I know. I've got caller ID. What's up?"

"Something happened to Danny earlier at the hospital—"

Sage's interest immediately peaked at Danny's name, heart pounding a bit more in her chest. She knew all about the lacrosse player's health issues, and knew even more about the struggle he has had ever since he had to get surgery when he was younger.

"What's wrong with him? Is he okay?" Sage spluttered out, barely aware that she cut off Scott in the middle of his explanation.

Cora stared at her in confusion from the other end of the phone, to which Sage mouthed Danny's name as if the girl would actually know who the boy was. The brunette seemed to catch on that Sage wanted to be alone though and waved goodbye before moving towards her own room.

"He's fine now. Ethan was with him when his lung started to collapse."

Sage's eyebrows furred. "Ethan?"

"Yeah, Ethan. Look, there is something else that you should know. Deaton was talking about healers as a part of the sacrifices, and the on-call doctor's car just showed up at the hospital completely abandoned. Stiles thinks that it has to do with the three-fold death and the Darach."

Sage felt her chest heave at the mention of the sacrifices. She hadn't had much time to think about it, or even consider herself being responsible lately, but reality came hitting her like a wrecking ball. The idea of being the Darach had been dismissed after seeing the hooded figure, which meant that there was another druid in town that obviously didn't like being measured up to Sage.

"But that's only one healer, right? No more bodies have shown up?"

"Stiles' dad just got a call about another body being found. Apparently, it was another doctor. "

Sage shut her eyes tightly, running her hands through her hair before nodding once to herself. She went to grab her leather jacket, tugging it on with one arm as she grabbed a hold of her keys.

"I'm on my way to the hospital. I'll be there in ten."

"Sage, it's fine. Stiles and I can handle this. One of us will text you if we find out anything more. I do have a question for you, though, if you can remember anything about it."

Sage pursed her lips. "Yeah, sure. What's up?"

"Do you know anything about mistletoe?"

Sage's hand fell slack on her phone, the weight of the object nearly making it crash to the ground. There was the striking fear in her chest that they found out what was going on, that Aiden told Scott about her throwing up the mistletoe and that the Darach was targeting her.

"No," Sage denied, lying straight through her teeth. "Just that it's poisonous. Why?"

"Danny threw it up right before his lung collapsed."

And Sage knew, then, that the Darach had sent its first warning.

☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

The next morning, Sage realized she would be killing two birds with one stone.

Not only was she going to be going to school and facing Jennifer Blake, the woman that had slept with her best friend while she was dying in a motel, but she was also going to have to see Stiles for the first time since their fight.

She wasn't sure what she and Stiles were anymore. After he said their relationship was a mistake, she didn't know if there even was one anymore. Ever since the beginning of the year started, things have been on the fence between them. They had a great start and a great middle, but the ending wasn't something she wanted to face.

She didn't want to end the relationship. She didn't want to lose him. Stiles was the only person that kept her grounded, but lately, it seems like the ground was a thousand feet away. They could only be in the same room as each other for a few minutes before they were at each other's throats and that wasn't how she wanted to be with her boyfriend.

She just wished she could be happy for once in her life.

By the time she pulled up to school, not having to make her usual stop at the McCall house to pick up Isaac, she was already dreading the day. All she wanted to do was stay hidden in the Camaro and hope that no one came looking for her.

To her utter dismay, someone had just a second after she thought it, knocking on her window.

"Seriously?" Sage grumbled, rolling her eyes as she grabbed a hold of her black backpack. "Just one freaking day in my life where I can actually relax without some supernatural something ruining my d— hi, Lydia."

The strawberry blonde had been the one to knock on her window, cutting Sage's rant short when she pulled open the Camaro's door herself. Sage was greeted with the shining face of her best friend, and somehow wished she could just put a bag on the girl's head. She didn't need to see happiness so early in the morning.

"You look your usual level of brood," Lydia commented, frowning at the blonde. "How are you?"

Sage raised her eyebrows, pulling herself from the car. "About what? The fact that I tried to set myself on fire, that my boyfriend and I are about to chew each other apart, or the fact that some dark druid is roaming around town garroting people for the hell of it?"

"All of the above."

Sage sent an exaggerated smile towards her friend. "I'm perfect."

"Your hair is in a bun today," Lydia remarked, nodding towards the mess on top of Sage's head. "Since when did you wear your hair in a bun?"

"Since I realized I don't give a shit about what I look like."

Lydia hummed. "Are you excited about seeing our English teacher?"

Sage paused on her way up the stairs of the school, turning to give the strawberry blonde a glare as she felt her annoyance creep up. She had told Lydia about Derek screwing around with Jennifer Blake, and to say she wasn't pleased was taking the whole situation slightly.

It wasn't just the fact she hated all of the girls Derek has been with apart from Paige, it was the feeling that Jennifer Blake gave Sage any time the two were in a room together. Knowing that the woman fucked the man she's known since she was four in her living room didn't exactly sit well with her either, though.

"I'm going to refrain from answering that question and move along to another," Sage decided, pulling open the door for herself and Lydia. "How are you and Aiden? You still meeting up in Coach's office during free period?"

The strawberry blonde shrugged. "I got tired of him."

"You mean you got tired of his dick," Sage corrected, snorting slightly.

She found it was easier to joke about the situation as if it didn't bother her instead of actually coming out about the truth with her and Aiden. Normally, she wouldn't have asked about anything involving Lydia and her ex, mostly for the reason that she had been scarred ever since she walked in on them making out.

But, somehow, she needed to use Lydia as a way of steering herself away from Aiden.

"Same thing," Lydia remarked. "I've got to get my books from my locker but I'll see you at lunch, alright?"

Sage nodded and pulled her jacket tighter around her. "If Stiles comes up to me when you're gone, I'm going to murder you."

"Doubtful," Lydia retorted just as she left the blonde, moving to her locker and getting lost in the sea of high school students.

Sage figured she would have to go find Allison or her own locker, not wanting to roam around the hallway for another ten minutes looking like an idiot. She also didn't want to run into Stiles, figuring that her safety would be near the other side of the school where the lockers beginning with S didn't reside.

Just as she was about to turn around a corner, someone had grabbed a hold of her arm to tug her near their locker. At first, she thought that it was just the person she was hoping to avoid but soon realized that, although it wasn't the original culprit, it was someone just as bad.

Her guard went down and she sighed at the boy. "You need to stop doing that."

"Are you okay?" Aiden asked, his eyebrows raising as he moved closer to her so that the other teenagers around couldn't listen in to their conversation as easily.

The blonde blinked a couple of times, honestly surprised at the genuine concern in Aiden's voice. She wasn't used to it. She figured that Aiden might have just been playing her last night with his words of comfort, but he seemed to be truly interested in her well being.

"I'm fine," Sage said. "Just tired."

Aiden squeezed her arm slightly. "I assume Scott told you about the murders last night."

"He did."

Aiden narrowed his eyes at her. "Ethan told me that Danny threw up mistletoe last night at the hospital. I'm not assuming that was just a coincidence an hour after you did it yourself?"

Sage huffed out, slightly in annoyance that Aiden was much smarter than he let on. She hadn't anticipated for Ethan to tell Aiden about Danny's whole issue with the mistletoe, and she hadn't expected for the boy to put two-and-two together. Obviously, they were connected. She just didn't know how.

"Maybe it was," Sage opted, her lips pulling down. "I've got to get to class."

Aiden nodded and let go of her arm. Just as she was about to turn away, his grasp came back quicker and tighter than the last. "Sage?"

"What?" Sage wondered, turning to him with arched eyebrows. She couldn't be late again.

"Go to a friend's house tonight."

The blonde's brows furred. "Why?"

"Just, please, go to Lydia's house."

Sage pursed her lips but nodded. Aiden seemed content with her acceptance and let go again, nodding himself before slowly backing up in the opposite direction. She watched him go, confused and dazed as to why he was so adamant on getting her to stay away from the loft.

She chose not to look too much into it and went to the direction of her chemistry class.

The second that she walked in, she was greeted with a face that hadn't been on her happy list. In fact, it was probably the furthest from happiness she has seen in a while. Sage couldn't help but let her lip curl slightly at the sight of Jennifer Blake, trying to keep down the growl building in her throat.

She would rather see Harris than Blake at this point.

Great.

Sage kept her tongue in her mouth, refraining from saying anything that could potentially ruin her ability to call herself a student at the school. She just needed to get through this class. The class that Jennifer was teaching. The class that she sat next to Stiles in.

The class that was basically the epitome of her own personal hell.

The blonde took her seat, hoping and praying that Stiles randomly got a bad case of the flu and couldn't come to school today. She wasn't sure she could stand sitting next to him for a whole hour without losing her mind; that, or he looked as much like shit as she did today.

Her day only got worse when Stiles came walking through the door, Scott behind him.

The three hadn't had any interaction with each other since Glen Capri, where they all practically gave a death pact to one another. She figured it would be awkward, especially considering all three of them were ready to burn to death because of the unbreakable relationship they had.

Sage couldn't help but feel as though her relationship with Stiles couldn't be more breakable.

"Lovely," Sage muttered, putting her head on her arms. She wasn't too sure she wanted to make eye contact with her boyfriend today, much less speak to him. Knowing Jennifer, she'll end up making today be partner work.

She heard the scratching of the chair to her left and could hardly contain her cringe.

Someone hit the top of her bun from in front of her. "What's up with you?"

"I feel like hell," Sage admitted, her voice muffled as she replied to Scott.

She was thankful that Stiles hadn't made an attempt to speak to her. She could handle a conversation with Scott, he was the only thing keeping the balance and moderation in this classroom right now.

Finally, Sage braved up and lifted her head.

Scott winced when he saw her. "You look like hell."

"Thank you, Scott," Sage muttered, rubbing at her face. "You really know how to make a girl feel like a hundred bucks."

"I'm kidding."

Stiles shifted from beside Sage, feeling out of place as he tried to figure out a way to speak to Sage. He didn't know how, barely able to open his mouth as he pursed his lip every other second. He needed to apologize, try to make their relationship right somehow, but he wasn't sure any word in the English language could make up for what he said to her.

Then, Stiles blurted out, "I'm sorry."

Sage turned to look at him with surprised green eyes. She hadn't expected that to come from his mouth. Maybe a few profanities or possibly another spat of hatred, but definitely not an apology. She didn't see why he was the one apologizing when it was her who initiated the fight. It was always her who initiated the fight.

And yet, the fact that he was apologizing seemed to irritate her. She prayed he didn't think a simple "sorry," was going to fix the fact that he said loving her might have been a mistake. Those aren't words a person can just simply take back and hope for things to be better.

She stared at him, trying to figure out what to say in return.

Before she could answer, Jennifer Blake had spoke up to the class. "Good morning. As you all know, Mister Harris is still missin—um, I mean, sick. Anyway, I'm filling in, and we all hope and pray for a more qualified substitute to take my place—"

Sage rolled her eyes. "Clearly you spend more time screwing around with people you met a week ago in a basement than you actually do teaching."

There were snickers around the room the second she spoke, and she heard a groan from Stiles to her left. Sage figured that she was going to let it slip sooner or later, she just hadn't expected it to be in front of the whole class.

Still, she didn't regret saying it.

"Sage," Scott complained from in front of her, practically scolding her for her inability to think before she spoke.

Jennifer Blake was phased by Sage's comment but chose not to show it, the only evidence being her bright red cheeks as her lips tightened to try and control her words. Sage couldn't help but let her mouth pull up into a smirk as she leaned back into her chair, pleased with herself.

"Well," Jennifer muttered, plastering a fake smile on her face to try and distance herself from the snark. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Sage's smirk fell as soon as Jennifer turned around, going back to feeling like shit. Scott turned around to scowl at her, and she shrugged once to signify that she didn't care what anyone thought about her at this point. She was going to say what she wanted because she wasn't sure how much longer she would be able to say it.

Stiles didn't seem too affected by her bluntness, more than likely already used to it with how many times he had been on the receiving end of it. The teenage boy needed to speak to his friends though, his hand falling instinctively to Sage's upper arm to grab her attention while he nudged Scott's shin with his foot.

Sage's body tensed up when he touched her, but she relaxed a few seconds later.

Stiles leaned forward a bit. "My dad said that the ER attending wasn't strangled but did die from asphyxiation. They just don't know how."

"Does that mean the on-call doctor could still be alive?" Scott wondered, his eyebrows furring as he questioned Stiles.

Sage didn't know anything apart from what Scott explained to her last night, rather just coming to realizations on her own and trying to put the pieces together as they were explained.

"I don't know," Stiles admitted, his voice getting lower as he moved even closer to Sage so that Jennifer didn't call them out for talking. "But, guys, there has got to be, at least, twenty other doctors in that hospital. At least."

"Any one of them could be next," Sage added, her eyes widening slightly as she understood that there was absolutely no way for the three of them to warn all of those people.

Scott went to speak but just before he could, there was a loud vibration that caught all of their attentions. The werewolf in front of them had immediately moved so he was under the desk, voice in a hushed whisper as he answered the call.

"Hey, Doc. Sorry, I'm in class right now. Can I call you back later?" Scott questioned, Sage and Stiles only able to hear the wolf's replies rather than the whole conversation happening between the two.

"Scott? What's going on?" Sage whispered, eyes flickering up to make sure Jennifer wasn't looking over at them. She wasn't too worried about that anyway. The woman wouldn't do anything to her.

The werewolf's whole body went rigid, and Scott began to repeat "Doc," more than necessary as his eyes grew wide. Whatever had been said on the other end of the line clearly wasn't just a talk about work.

Just a second later, Scott was hastily grabbing a hold of his backpack and rushing out the door.

"What? What the hell?" Sage muttered, confused as she watched her friend leave the room.

Jennifer hadn't even had a chance to call the boy back, and Sage thought she was going to get whiplash with how quickly Stiles was up as well. Just as she turned her head, there was a pressure on her lips and then her boyfriend had fled as well.

Stiles had kissed her.

Stiles hadn't realized he kissed her.

Before Sage could think too much into the fact that he actually did kiss her, there was a vibration in her pocket and she quickly pulled out her phone to see that she had a text message from Isaac.

From: Lahey

Come to the loft. Now. Alpha pack planning to attack tonite.

That was when Sage realized why Aiden had told her not to be at the loft tonight, and the truth set in and hit her quicker than the confusion when he first said it had. So, just like Stiles and Scott, Sage had left her chemistry class without so much as an explanation to Jennifer.

Aiden had been trying to protect her from himself.

☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

n.e.

idk. this chapter is just eh. i always hate my chapters so its no big deal. but, anyways, this is pretty much just an iffy chapter. not much happens in it. im only eleven minutes into currents and i feel like im about to explode.

but, i hope that you guys liked it. let me know what you think because your comments bring me joy and i love you all. ifjwrwer. okay. bye.