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THIRTY NINE;

FALSE IDENTITIES

The barrel of the gun stared her right in the eye and she didn't even blink. Allison Argent was standing in front of her, brown orbs dazed as the gun that was meant for Malia stayed sturdy in the direction of Sage. The blonde didn't make a single move, knowing that the brunette in front of her was hallucinating something that wasn't reality. She also knew, though, that if her friend didn't come out of it soon that there would be xylazine in her system.

"Allison," the blonde found herself slowly speaking, conscious to the fact that the wrong words could trigger a fatal response out of the hunter that wasn't going to end well for either of them. "Put down the gun. It's me, Allison. I'm right here."

It had originally been Isaac's job to come down here, the teenage boy opting on helping Allison prepare all of the equipment that she would need, but everyone knew that it was just a way for him to keep an eye on the brunette to assure himself and all of the others that nothing happened. Even after Sage said she would take his place, the curly-haired gentle giant still found himself uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Sage and Allison in the same room as one another. Now, the blonde knew exactly why the worry was so overwhelming.

"Allison," Sage hissed out once again, still facing the barrel as it practically taunted every single flinch she made. "I need you to put down the gun, okay? It's Sage. I don't know what you're seeing but it's me, Allison."

The brunette seemed to be in a trance, so Sage did the one thing that Allison's father taught her to do if there was ever a gun in front of her face and she had the ability of grabbing it. Rather quickly, the blonde grabbed the neck of the gun, the barrel having moved from the direction of Sage's face over to the door frame, and when Sage hastily tugged on the end, the entire gun came effortlessly towards her as she took a few steps back with the machinery in her arms. Allison blinked a few seconds later, and then her eyes went wide as she glanced around the room to see where she was at. The former hunter was still disoriented, having to adjust her sight in order to completely reflect on the fact that the gun Sage was holding had previously been in her hands and directly pointed at her best friend.

"Oh, my god," Allison spluttered out, hands moving up to her mouth in stumbling apologies. "Sage, I'm so sorry. I'm so... I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was doing. I'm sorry."

The blonde stared at her with hesitation. "What happened? You were getting the stuff from under the desk and a second later you had the gun pointed at me."

"I don't know," Allison muttered, swallowing hard as she stared back at the blonde with shaking hands. "I don't know. How am I supposed to help anyone when I'm like this? What am I supposed to do?"

Sage took a few steps forward, still trying to recover after having had a gun pointed at her face, slowly setting the thing down on the table before standing in front of Allison. The brunette was still unsteady, her posture screaming uncertainty about everything while her shoulders shook. It didn't take much for the blonde to realize that this was how all of the others felt when they saw her in the same state, weak and vulnerable all because of the darkness around their hearts.

Slowly, Sage's hands wrapped around Allison's wrist and the girl was taking the bottle of xylazine from her friend. "You need to let me help you."

"How are we going to do this, Sage?" Allison questioned, tears stinging her vision as she let the blonde take the bottle from her. "How are we going to save this girl when the two of us are struggling to save ourselves? They're all depending on me to shoot it perfectly, but I haven't— I can't—"

"Hey," Sage started, hand tightening around the brunette. "You can do this. Do you want to know why? Because I believe in you, Allison. I've believed in you since the second I met you and you can't start doubting yourself now, okay? I believe in you and I believe that this will work."

Allison shook her head. "Why? I don't understand why all of us keep trying to hard to have this normal, teenage life when we're never going to be normal. I mean, you and Stiles can barely look at each other and I don't... I just don't see how you can believe."

"Because I didn't get a three month break to another country, Allison. I didn't get to cry over the fact that my boyfriend and I aren't together anymore. I didn't get to watch The Notebook a thousand times on a constant loop, or get to look for new guys that will never amount to him.I got hallucinations and your death sentence stuck in my brain every time I close my eyes. I got pain, and I got this overwhelming fear of getting too close to any of you because I'm absolutely terrified of being left behind. I'm terrified, Allison. I'm not sad about not being a teenage girl, or that some part of me still tries to believe despite all that's happened. I'm sad because I know that I can never be one because of what I am and what we do."

Sage felt a a rock form in her throat, felt all of her words choke her as she realized how much truth was put into them. She tried so hard every single day to remain optimistic, but ever since she broke up with Stiles and ever since the hallucinations of her friends began, nothing has ever been the same. All of those memories that she had of sophomore year faded away as she realized she was already losing everyone she loved. She lost her brother and her father that day of the fire. She lost Jackson when he had boarded the plane and said his final goodbye to her. She lost Aiden, the one that she had fallen in love with two years ago. She lost Laura, the person that showed her how to survive as a teenage girl. She lost Boyd and Erica, two people that she had been sitting on battle lines with until she realized that there was no point within fighting.

She lost herself. Sage knew that it was inevitable, knew that a year ago when she and Derek drove through the boarders of Beacon Hills that she was going to lose everything that defined her. The personality that she had when she was a sixteen year old was no longer living inside of her, replaced with this insanity that chewed it away until there was nothing left. There was a girl that had literally died, only to come back to realize that she had an even darker heart than before; but, even then, she had to try and convince herself that believing was the only thing that she had left. She had to believe that things were going to get better, and that junior year was going to change and shift and become this extraordinary experience with memories that she could reflect back on in twenty years. She had to believe that she was going to walk out of this, that Allison would be right beside her and all of the others. She had to.

"Sage?" Allison asked, her words cracking as she spoke the name of her best friend, feeling tears begin to slip down her face as her hands tightened within the blonde's grip. "I don't know who I am anymore."

The blonde glanced up, giving Allison a false smile. "I don't think any of us do."

And that had been that.

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Two cars and a single motorcycle all showed up to the Beacon Hills Preserve at the same time, careful not to run too close off the trail. Each of them were set on the mission to save Malia, to turn a werecoyote back into a teenage girl. Despite the fact that it had been their overall goal ever since they found out who Malia Tate was, there was still hesitancy in the eyes of some of the pack.

For instance, the two people in separate cars with the same heart both seemed to take a deep breath before pulling themselves from their cars. Sage pulling herself out of her Camaro with Allison falling from the passenger's seat all while Stiles moved until his feet were on the gravel trails of the preserve. Neither would have cared to admit it, but there was a split second where their eyes connected and they shared a look of indecisiveness. They may not be together, but they still shared the same instincts.

Everyone seemed to glance over at each other, taking double takes to make sure that no one was going to back out of the plan. Scott's eyes went to Lydia, who went to Allison, who had sent a single glance towards Isaac, who hesitated before looking towards Sage, and finally ending with the blonde letting her orbs fall on her ex-boyfriend once again. All of them seemed prepared enough, all of them prepared to risk their lives to save another person's. Finally being the one to speak up, Lydia asked, "Anyone else think we might be doing more harm than good?"

"It doesn't matter," Sage muttered, moving to give her strawberry-blonde friend a look that clearly showed she was just as unsure as Lydia. "We're not the people that just sit around and wait for a teenage girl to die."

Scott nodded, feeling the need to speak up with Sage's case. "We're trying to keep a father from killing his own daughter."

It seemed like Scott and Sage were just trying to convince themselves that walking through the woods while there was a man with many lethal weapons trying to kill a werecoyote wasn't a terrible idea. The only thing that they were trying to do to assure themselves to continue on with this plan was the fact that they couldn't just leave Malia behind. It was not in any of their natures to just wait and pray for the best. It never has been.

"Actually," Isaac cut in, frowning a bit when he processed the words. "We're trying to keep a guy from killing a coyote who is actually his daughter, who we don't know how to change from a coyote back to his daughter."

Stiles' eyes narrowed at Isaac, still annoyed after the series of events that had occurred back at the clinic. "And, again, with the not helping."

Isaac gave a sarcastic smile towards the teenage boy, but it was slowly defused the second that there was a rather deep exhale from Sage's lips, making everyone turn to look over at the blonde in confusion. She had been previously staring off into the woods, completely oblivious to the bickering between Stiles and Isaac up until she felt a hand fall on her shoulder and turned around to look at Scott in confusion.

"Hey, are you okay?" Scott asked, his eyebrows furring as he noticed the abrupt change in the girl's personality.

Sage nodded once, giving him a small smile as she shrugged herself deeper into the red jacket that she chose to wear today. "I'm fine."

He nodded once, and dismissed the topic, but Allison and Stiles weren't as easily convinced the more that they stared at the blonde. The hunter had seen Sage's personality just a few moments before in the car and it resembled nothing of who stood in front of her now, almost as if a switch had been flicked and some realization washed over her blonde friend. Stiles noticed just as well that she wasn't acting the way she had earlier, that there was something different in her.

Allison's weary look had been replaced with a frown when she turned at the sound of Scott's voice asking her the one thing she wasn't sure of. "Did you bring it?"

She gave her former boyfriend a short and small nod, popping the trunk to Sage's car so that she could retrieve the gun that she had unintentionally pointed at the blonde's head just half an hour prior to standing in her very spot in the woods. Allison was still horrified at the idea of being relied on to shoot Malia with the xylazine, not completely positive with her aim after everything she had been through.

"Alright," Scott said, nodding at her. "So, how exactly are we going to do th—"

The boy's words had been cut short at the sound of two loud gunshots coming from the distance, all of the teenagers that had been previously standing in a circle jolting to life, all of them except for Sage, who stood still as a rock while everyone around her began to set into action; or rather, panicked into action. Scott had been the first to flee, not thinking twice about the consequences before hopping on his bike and roaring the thing to life, the machinery going flying down the trail only a second later. Stiles was the first to react, his eyes widening when he noticed his best friend's dispersing figure, moving from his place by his car to chase after the bike.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Stiles called out, practically screaming at Scott to stop so that they could think of something to do instead of just aiming head-on to the place where the shots were fired from.

It was too late, however, because Scott was disappearing and Isaac was running after him in an attempt to catch up. Before any of them were aware of what was happening, Allison was going after Isaac with the gun in her hand. Sage watched; she watched as they all left, all abandoned their posts just at the mere sound of gunshots. Then, there were three of them.

"Stiles." Lydia stumbled over her words, her eyes moving to the boy. "Call your dad."

The boy frowned at the girl, his hesitation obvious as he considered all of the things that could go wrong with calling his father. It didn't seem to matter anymore though, not when his dad was already too far deep into this for him to turn away. So, Stiles pulled his phone out and called his father, the conversation beginning with his father's rushed and blunt words about what the gunshots were for and why they were fired.

"It took the doll again?" Stiles spluttered out, his eyes squinting in confusion and annoyance as he turned around to face Lydia and Sage again. "What the hell is so important about this doll?"

Stiles listened in as his father replied. "I don't know, but listen, there are traps all over those woods— near the trails, probably near the car crash, and Tate's out there with a rifle. I want you to stay out of those woods, you got that? Stiles?"

The boy was too busy staring ahead in realization, his whole face going slack all while the two girls in front of him raised their eyebrows in question. "It's the doll."

"Stiles?"

Sheriff's son was too busy trying to wrap his mind around the fact that all of this had to do with a single doll, his face contorting as he hung up the phone on his father. "It's the doll? Why would it go all the way to the school and then back to the house just for a doll? One that was in the car wreck in the first place. We didn't find it in the coyote den."

"It likes the doll," Sage deadpanned, arms crossed over her chest as she narrowed her eyes on Stiles' crouched figure all while Lydia paced back and forth in front of her. "Who cares?"

Stiles still didn't seem convinced. "Yeah, it likes the doll a lot."

"What kind of doll was it?" Lydia asked, her pacing coming to a stop as she turned to look at Stiles with shaking fingers, not totally accepting of where her mind was leading her.

"I don't know," Stiles admits, somewhat annoyed that the girl thought he should honestly know that. "It's a doll. You know, it's got little arms and a big, baby head... dead, soulless eyes. Actually, I took a pic. Here."

Stiles gets up, his phone pulled out of his pocket with the picture pulled up. Both Sage and Lydia move in closer, their attention on the two girls that were sitting together outside. They looked happy, the sisters smiling at the camera with bright grins on their faces, never having realized that in few years, one of them would be dead and another cursed with something that ran deep in her blood.

"That's Malia?" Lydia asked, pointing towards the older girl in the picture for confirmation.

Stiles nodded. "Yeah, that's the jacket and scarf we found in the den."

"Stiles," Sage called out, her lips pursed tightly together as she crossed her arms over her chest. "She isn't the one holding the doll. That's her younger sister, isn't it?"

Stiles' finger pressed on the picture after having noticed what the blonde did, and his head slowly lifted when he came to the conclusion of what the whole purpose of the doll was for. "It was her doll. I know what she's doing."

"What?" Lydia asked, still oblivious as her mind couldn't put the pieces together as fast as Stiles, or even Sage for that matter.

"I know where she's going." Stiles quickly closed out of the picture, his footsteps quick as he made a move deep into the woods all while dialing Scott's number. Sage and Lydia glanced at each other before moving to follow after the teenage boy, not really having many options going for them. The strawberry-blonde had a quicker pace, moving to catch up with Stiles all while Sage just slacked behind with a casual posture.

"Scott, it's me," Stiles blurted out, wanting to get to straight to the point considering he had a limited amount of time to explain what was going on through voicemail. "You've got to call me back as soon as you can. It wasn't Malia's doll, it was her sister's. Malia left it at the car for her sister. It's like bringing flowers to a grave, okay? We stole the flowers. That's all she's trying to do—"

There was a split second where the words that had been spilling from Stiles' lips got cut off at the agonizing sound of a scream. The teenage boy paused, a chill running down his spine when he realized that he heard the screech too often to not know the voice that embodied the pain.

Slowly, at a horribly slow pace, Stiles turned his body to see that Sage was a couple of feet away, hands dug deep into the ground as she let out continuous cries while holding her ankle. There was something wrong, it being obvious enough that a complication had risen in one of the other's attempts to catch Malia and her father. The teenage boy rushed forward without a secondary response, Lydia going to follow after his actions only to be stopped at the terrifying sound of a click, alerting that she had just stepped into something that would leave her useless to helping the blonde. Sage watched, though, the blonde had been watching the whole time as her strawberry-blonde friend walked into the trap that was designed for Malia. Sage watched, and she hadn't done anything to stop it.

"Stiles," Lydia choked out, stopping the boy from crouching down next to his former girlfriend and moving his attention over to the girl that had just called out his name. "Stiles!"

He glanced over, his eyes moving from the obvious pain that was coming from Sage's ankle from the others and over to Lydia. The girl had just walked right into a trap, literally, and was stuck due to the effects that would come with the slightest pressure added to what her foot was on.

Stiles' eyes widened. "Lydia, don't move."

The brunette boy glanced in between Sage and Lydia, realizing that there was a dilemma of the fact that both of them were put in situations that were going to end badly either way. The blonde shook her head at Stiles, letting out a choking gasp as she applied pressure to the ankle that continued to sting in pain. Lydia was in a bigger issue than her, which meant that she was the one who needed the help.

"Look for a warning label," Sage instructed, although the small glimmer in her eye told her that she was otherwise against the idea. "There should be a warning label on the bottom of it, Stiles."

Stiles looked over at the girl that was now farther away from him than Lydia. "A warning label?"

"Instructions of how to disarm it," Lydia explained, her voice nearly cracking as the cry got lodged in the back of her throat, trying to keep herself calm despite the storm that was raging inside her head at the idea of this trap going off on her leg.

Stiles glanced down at the thing, his chest heaving as his eyes moved over to Sage, who was still on the ground in agony, then over to Lydia, who was standing on a trap in anticipation. "Lydia, why in the hell would they put instructions on the bottom of a trap?"

"Because animals can't read, Stiles," Sage snapped through small gasps out in pain as the pressure on her ankle got more intense, having come to the conclusion that it was Isaac who found himself in the same trap that Lydia was now stationed in. Stiles seemed to consider the statement, his head tilting to the side as he considered it before nodding once and bending down so that he could get closer to the trap to find the warning label. He did, too, but the biggest issue now wasn't that Lydia was trapped or that Sage couldn't move, but that Stiles Stilinski was one hundred percent incapable of reading a single thing.

"Lydia, we have a problem," Stiles began, his voice wavering as he looked up at her. "I can't read either."

The strawberry-blonde began shaking her head. "You don't need the instructions. When was the last time you have ever used instructions, am I right? You don't need them because you are too smart to waste your time with them, okay? You—"

Lydia's words had been suffocated by the lump forming in her throat, the girl incapable of encouraging Stiles any more as she realized she could barely hold herself together. The tears began to trip past her eyelids without her permission, and she wanted nothing to do with them but knew that they were going to escape anyway.

That was when another voice came into the conversation, the blonde that was halfway across from the two teenager making sure that her former boyfriend could hear her loud and clear. "Stiles, look at me. You don't need the instructions, alright? You think that you do but I promise that you don't. You can figure it out. Stiles, you're the one who always figures it out. So, you can do it."

"Figure it out," Lydia choked out, barely capable of saying even those three words. Stiles' jaw clenched, face going hard as he stared at the ground. The words, no matter how many times they may say them, had only been enough encouragement for him to realize that if he didn't fix this then there was no other option left for Lydia. That was when his eyes settled in on something hiding in the grass, barely visible to anyone that wasn't crouched.

Pulling away the grass and weeds, Stiles realized that it was his only option of getting Lydia out safely and gave her a look of uncertainty. "Okay, okay, here we go. Ready?" When Lydia nodded, he swallowed hard. "Okay, here we go."

His nimble fingers turned the knob, and the second that it happened Lydia was stumbling out of the trap and the two of them were jumping forward, landing hard on the ground as they crawled away from the thing. Just moments after Lydia's foot escaped it, the jaws of it came crashing together as they envisioned what would have happened if Stiles hadn't of found a way.

Stiles and Lydia ended up on the ground close to Sage, the two of them glancing over at the blonde before taking shaky breaths and slowly getting up to help her to the car. Just as Stiles grabbed a hold of her waist to hold her up, fingers finding the bare skin under her shirt, a sound from deep within the woods had all of them turning. A growl of an alpha rang through the woods, and that meant only one thing: Malia, despite all of the hardships that they had to face while doing so, had been saved and that was the only thing that mattered.

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Sage sat in the passenger's seat of her Camaro, silent as she watched Allison pack up all of the equipment with the gun. Isaac, who had been the one she acquired her injury from, sit in the backseat of the car with both of their doors open and legs stretched out. The blonde stared into the forest, swallowing hard as she gripped her hands together tightly.

"We saved her," Isaac stated to Sage and Allison. "I didn't think we would, but we actually saved her. You can shoot again, Allison, and Scott can transform into an alpha without a problem. Thing actually turned out okay today."

Allison quirked an eyebrow at him as she passed. "You sound surprised."

"I'm just not used to things working," Isaac admitted, shrugging.

"How's your leg?" Allison asked, gesturing towards the boy's wound that had been inflicted when he stepped into the trap on his way to chase after Scott. "Are you healing?"

"Yeah, I'm fine now. It's just a bit of an ache now. Hey, look, Sage, I'm sorry about all of that. I know that it hurts you—" Isaac's sentenced was stopped when the blonde that had been sitting in the seat in front of him got up, hands tightening into fists at her sides as she literally moved up and away from the conversation. "Sage?"

Allison noticed that the blonde was leaving as well, and called out, "Where are you going?"

Sage didn't answer them, just moved her balled fists to her chest as she wrapped her arm around herself, moving down the trail in the woods with a slight limp. She didn't answer their calls, didn't even hear them as she set her sights on walking home instead of staying in a car with people that were only going to ask her questions she didn't want to answer; and, while everyone else's symptoms seemed to be getting better, through the trees in the deep woods, Sage had seen another one of her friends lose their life by the blade of a dark figured demon, and that had been enough for the switch inside of her to flick off, leaving her in the dark as a false identity invaded parts of her sanity.

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it's been like twenty years.

my apologies. ive been refraining from writing the rest of this episode because eh, writing, but i wanted to get through it considering the next episode is the barrow one and then i have the black light party and a ton of shit happens in that. also, the twins come back in the next episode and im extremely excited.

also, what do you think happened to sage? :-) :-) let me know what you thought of the chapter. i know that a lot of you are like, "i don't feel like commenting, someone else will," but i honestly appreciate all of them and read them even though i don't always reply. just let me know what you're excited about and if this story is even good anymore.

i feel like people lost interest the second i began writing 3b.