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TWENTY FIVE;

MISGUIDED REASONS

Life.

Life is a word that people can barely explain without using crazy hand gestures and synonyms that mean nothing in correlation to the actual definition. It's something that people can't describe because life is different for every single person. Someone sitting next to you could have the visually perfect life, but on the inside be breaking down at all of the expectations that come with it.

It's a word that people don't necessarily think about on a daily occasion unless it's throwing it around with other words like "I hate my life," and "What is life?" but, in a relatively normal person's eyes, life is something given to everyone and taken away from everyone. That person sitting next to you could finally go to therapy for family issues, and on the way home get into a car accident.

Life, in the simplest of terms, is unpredictable and deceitful.

All of Sage Connelly's life has been unpredictable and deceitful. People she thought she knew well ended up being murderers, people she didn't know at all ended up becoming her best friends, but in the end, the most unpredictable part about her life is what she surrounds herself in every single day.

When she was a little girl, only five or six, she had been so infatuated with the supernatural. She would spend countless hours aggravating Derek to change his eye color to golden yellow until he finally gave in and did so, the same going for Laura. That had been when her innocent eyes only saw the beauty that werewolves could bring.

Now, seventeen, she saw all the destruction.

She supposed that destruction began after Aiden, or maybe even before when she watched her family burn, but nonetheless, it appeared. Deucalion had been the one to change her that night, practically gluing her to the ground with his words and her humanity. He had been the one to originally show her that beauty can become evil, and destruction can become war.

Coming back to Beacon Hills, she hadn't expected for any of this to happen to her. She hadn't expected for Jackson Whittemore to turn into an abomination just by what defined him before he was even born, she hadn't expected for Matt to die just because of the mistake a couple of idiot teenagers made when he was a kid, she hadn't had expected for Peter, a man that she used to play football with in the Hale yard, to try and murder half of the town he grew up in.

She hadn't expected for herself to be nearly killed because of who her parents were; more importantly, her mother. A part of her always assumed that the blonde woman was hiding things, mostly just because she was always so secretive when it came to anything involving what she could do. To this day, Sage wasn't sure if her mother ever truly cared about the fact her son and daughter had developed the same curse, all of that pain running through Sage's veins every second of her life.

She wondered if that was why Jennifer Blake had tried to kill her.

"Sage, we're here," a voice muttered, gently giving her shoulder a squeeze as the blonde blinked a few times, her vision clearing enough for her to see that they were right.

Sage nodded, clearing her throat as she ignored the look Stiles and Scott gave her, figuring that if she pretended she didn't see it, she could convince herself it hadn't happened in the first place. There was no reason for her to be acting so crudely, especially when she wasn't the one that just had their father taken by the Darach.

Yet, the idea that she should be dead right now flooded her mind.

Scott, Stiles, and herself were all at her loft, hoping to god that Derek was actually there. Sage originally thought that he would be with Cora after she texted him what happened, alerting him that as soon as they save the teacher she would return to sit by the brunette's side until she was awake but that hadn't necessarily gone as planned after the Darach took her and Lydia.

Sage had been moving to climb up the few stairs that led to the door to her loft when she stumbled, going crashing to the ground while a hand quickly reached out to grab a hold of her waist. They were only a second late, her knees already colliding with the concrete. She didn't made a sound, didn't say thank you to Scott, who had tried to catch her.

She just hung her head low, letting out a short-winded sigh before standing up with what strength she could find after being strangled, knocked out, and tossed around more than she cared to admit. The two boys behind her didn't say anything, not sure if their words were any consolation to how she was feeling, or even how they were feeling themselves.

Scott seemed to be the only one capable of actually processing anything at the moment, putting him in charge of making sure that two of his best friends were stable and capable of continuing. Stiles had been silent the whole ride to the loft, Sage the exact same as her heart rate increased every single time Stiles hit a bump.

He couldn't do anything but help find Stiles' dad and help find the Sage he used to know.

The blonde was the first to pull open the door to her loft, stepping slowly inside while the other two followed closely behind. The intruder alarm was still going off, something that Sage quickly pressed so that the ringing would end. Derek had known they were here after that, slowly coming down from the stairs with a confused stare.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his eyes filing on the three just before they focused on a particular new thing situated directly below Sage's jaw and above her collar bones, right around her neck. His eyes went cold. "Who did this to you?"

The short strides he had been taken got larger, hands moving to the younger blonde's shoulders so that he could inspect the thin indent in Sage's skin. There was already bruising, Jennifer having had the garrote wrapped so tightly around herself and Lydia that the whole area was raw.

Sage's recoiled away from him slightly, head turning to the side. "She's going to be here any second."

"What?" Derek asked, his hands still on her shoulders. "Who?"

"The girl you slept with two feet away from where we're standing," Sage muttered, no sarcasm or amusement in her voice, just blank and cold as she stepped out of the man's grasp and back towards Scott and Stiles.

Again, Derek repeated, "What?"

"Jennifer Blake is the Darach," Scott explained, figuring he is the only one capable of informing the man what is going on. "She took Lydia and Sage back at the recital and tried to kill them. One of the teachers in the performance ended up dying as the third sacrifice. She is doing all of this, Derek."

Stiles swallowed hard. "She took my dad."

"She wouldn— I know her," Derek refused, shaking his head as his eyes went back to Sage's neck. "She wouldn't do something like this."

Sage blinked at him. "Are you calling us liars? Do you honestly think that I would lie about your girlfriend trying to murder me with a garrote? Derek, she tried to kill Lydia and I. She didn't just want to scare us, she wanted to kill us."

"Why?"

"We knew too much," she answered, rubbing at her wrists that had been confined in the tape.

Derek wanted to ask more questions, but he hadn't had the time as his head quirked to the side. Scott had done the same, but instead of his eyes quirking in confusion like the alpha in front of him, his hands absentmindedly outstretched to grab Stiles' shoulder and Sage's arm.

Both teenagers looked at him in confusion, but he only shook his head. "She's here. She's coming."

Stiles and Scott moved to go hide through busted wall, but Sage stayed behind a few seconds despite the boys' warning glances. She stared at the her best friend, trying to get him to move his attention away from her neck so that he would actually look at her when she spoke.

"Don't make the mistake of trusting the wrong woman twice," she said, her voice hoarse as she slowly started back up to hide, giving the man a warning glance so he would know that the thoughts running through his head weren't good intentions.

She had been talking about Kate Argent, the same woman Derek ended up falling for as his blanket of comfort after Paige's death. The same woman that turned out to be a hunter with a vengeance for the Hale family, in turn taking the Connelly's with them. The same woman that literally changed Derek and Sage from ignorant children to guarded hearts with just the flick of a flame.

Sage had just rounded around the corner, out of sight, when she heard the rough pulling of the loft's door followed by the sound of heeled boots clacking. "Derek? Derek, where are you?"

"Right here," Derek called back.

Sage felt her muscles tighten when she heard Jennifer's voice, mostly for the fact that only a half an hour ago the woman was trying desperately hard to strangle her to death. A person can't just forget that in thirty minutes; plus, she wasn't comfortable knowing that Derek was in there with the woman that has killed over ten people.

A hand fell into her own and she glanced down to see that Stiles had noticed her tension, their hands intertwining as he sent a sad, defeated smile her way.

"Oh, thank god," Jennifer gasped. "Something happened at the recital, at the school, okay? I need to tell you before it— before you hear any of it from them."

"From who?" Derek asked, and that was when Sage realized he had chosen to believe her over the feelings he once had for the psychopathic bitch.

"Scott, Sage, even Stiles," Jennifer began, without having realized that they were in the same room as her. "They're going to tell you things, things you can't believe. You have to trust me, okay? You trust me."

"What is it?"

"Promise you'll listen to me," Jennifer pleaded, her voice wavering slightly.

Derek nodded once, his facade still up. "I promise."

There was a moment of silence, and Sage didn't even want to begin to imagine the thought of Jennifer kissing Derek. She drew the line with anything involving the older man's sex life after he, quite literally now, fucked the she-devil right in their living room. No, she's had enough of him picking girls that just end up murdering people.

Something must have gone horribly wrong, or Derek's ability to hide the truth didn't extend to his lips, because Jennifer was snarling out, "They're already here, aren't they?" to which it was then their cue to walk out, announcing the fact that they had finally been one step ahead of the Darach.

Sage's hand tightened in Stiles' the second that she was face-to-face with Jennifer, trying to do her best to control the pent up rage and atrocity that the face of the woman brought her. Scott had been gracious enough to stop far enough away from them, the couple just a few centimeters back to his right.

"So, they told you it was me?" Jennifer asked, feigning hurt as she stared at the ground. "That I'm the one taking people?"

Scott narrowed his eyes on the girl. "We told him you're the one killing people."

"Oh, that's right," Jennifer falsely agreed, laughing slightly. "Committing human sacrifices. What? Cutting their throats? Yeah, I probably do it on my lunch hour that way I can get back to teaching high school English the rest of the day. That makes perfect sense."

Sage wasn't the only one hurt in the process of standing in front of Jennifer. Stiles, who had been intently listening to the woman try to cover her tracks, found tears building up in his eyes when he realized that she was trying to play off the fact she didn't just take the only relative left in his life.

With a shaky voice, Stiles asked, "Where's my dad?"

"How should I know?" Jennifer asked, exasperated as she turned to Derek. "Derek, tell me you don't believe this."

The man stared at her for a few seconds before his eyes redirected over to Sage's neck, then to the tears building up in Stiles' eyes that he couldn't fake. "Do you know what happened to Stiles' father?"

"No."

Sage snapped at that. "Why don't you ask her why she almost killed Lydia and I?"

"Lydia Martin? You? I don't know anything about that!"

Sage's jaw clenched tightly, feeling an instinctual desire to rub her, still, burning throat. Just being in the presence of the person that did it brought an unsatisfying sting to her whole body, piercing her like a thousand knives. She didn't see how Jennifer could play off everything so well, acting as if none of it was all on her guilty hands.

"Then, what do you know?" Derek tempted, his voice cold as he calculated the woman with his eyes.

"I know that these kids, for whatever misguided reason, are filling your head with an absurd story," Jennifer gushed to the man, just before turning to the teenagers. "And one they can't prove, by the way."

Sage found herself smiling lightly, just before she pulled something out of her leather jacket that she figured would make up for all the times she was spluttering out on the ground. "Oh, I don't know about that, Miss Blake. I think we can."

"What is that?" Jennifer deadpanned, narrowing in on the jar.

"My friend, Deaton, told me that it's a poison and a cure," Sage began to explain, her hand moving out of Stiles' so that she could unscrew the lid. "Which means that you can use it, like you did on me, and it can be used against you."

Jennifer's eyes widened in horror. "Mistletoe."

Sage was grateful that the boys had given her the honor of throwing the mistletoe on Jennifer because, in a way, it was the best revenge that she could have been given. There was nothing that could amount to the feeling she was granted whilst watching everything Jennifer had tried to hide come out right before her, and Derek's, eyes.

The mistletoe had uncovered the woman's true nature, giving everyone in the room a splitting image of the slashed apart face of the Darach just before it disappeared and Jennifer was back to normal. That hadn't changed anything though, because although she look normal again, everyone had already seen the monster she hid under her false skin.

In an attempt to flee, Derek had quickly grabbed a hold of Jennifer's neck before she could escape, throwing her back to her original position. Had he not believed before that the girl he was sleeping with was the one sacrificing people, he definitely did now. The only problem was that all of the trust he had towards the girl was pent up into anger for falling for her, his claws outstretching, ready to kill.

"Derek," Jennifer cried just as he raised his claws. "Wait, wait, wait! You need me!"

Derek wasn't having it, his words snarling out. "What are you?"

"The only person who can save your sister and Sage," Jennifer choked out, gripping tightly onto Derek's hand as to try and ease the pressure he was putting on her neck. "Call Peter. Call him!"

Sage's eyes narrowed, wondering why the woman would poison Cora of all people. She didn't see why Cora would be a person of interest, not unless she was just another insurance policy that Jennifer got out of this alive, like Sage herself. The blonde had hope though that Deaton would figure out a way to get all of the mistletoe out of her system, he always did.

Derek's hand found his phone, quickly dialing Peter's number and putting it up to his ear. "How is she?"

Sage watched, unable to hear the entirety of the conversation, but had been plenty involved when he muttered out the word, "Mistletoe," just as he turned to face Sage. She had yet to tell him about her little issue throwing up the substance, and could only assume that the same thing was happening with Cora.

Derek pulled down his phone, narrowing his eyes on Jennifer before he turned to look at the blonde across the room from him. "You're throwing it up, too. Aren't you?"

Jennifer let out a throaty laugh, her hand flicking up slightly in Sage's direction. The girl hadn't realized what her teacher was doing at first, not until she felt a constricting feeling in her throat. That was when the familiar sensation had her shuddering and she was assembling a kneel on the ground, feeling the contents in her stomach come up.

A body, Stiles, came crouching down near her, gripping tightly onto her shoulders as she let out a pained cry. There was a harsh growl from other side of the room followed by a cry from Jennifer's mouth. That was when it stopped, Sage finally able to look up at Derek and the woman with blood falling from her lips.

Only this time, Jennifer made sure that it was black.

The werewolf in the room seemed to snap back into reality realizing that the only two girls in his life were now dying at the hand of one he thought he could grow to love, and his grip on the woman's neck tightened so quickly after seeing Sage convulse all over the floor.

"Derek," Scott warned. "Derek, what are you doing?"

Jennifer gasped out in pain. "Their lives— they're in my hands."

Derek seemed outraged at the blow, finally having enough and raising the woman off of the ground. Immediately, chaos erupted through the room when Stiles realized that if Jennifer died then he would never find his father and the girl he loved would die.

"Stop!" Stiles called out, standing up from his place beside Sage. "Stop!"

Jennifer took that as her target. "Stilinski. You'll never find him."

Even then, Derek seemed adamant on killing the girl that completely destroyed his trust.

"Derek," Scott called out, his eyes flickering over to Sage on the ground then his best friend. It was another few seconds that the man didn't release the girl, and he was snarling out again. "Derek!"

Jennifer abruptly fell to the ground when he let go, a replicated stance of Sage who couldn't find the strength to get up off her knees. The blonde realized that the Darach, literally, had her life and showed it just a few minutes ago. Sage and Cora were both dying, but what was even worse is knowing that Jennifer intended to make her's slow.

The woman had them right where she wanted them.

"That's right," Jennifer announced. "You need me. All of you."

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Sage sat in the back of Stiles' jeep, her head on the cool glass to try and ease the headache she was given after vomiting up the blood and mistletoe. They were going to the hospital to see Cora, where Jennifer said she would help the brunette and the blonde both. Sage wasn't sure that was true, especially since the moment Jennifer waved her hand, she's been feeling worse.

"What's wrong?" Scott asked, noticing that Stiles had a weary expression on his face while he drove to the hospital, following behind Derek who had the displeasure of being stuck with Jennifer.

Stiles frowned, his grip tightening on the wheel. "I don't know. Something feels wrong about this. We proved it to Derek but she still had this look like it didn't matter, you know? Like it was all still going according to plan. You saw it, didn't you?"

"All I saw was her trying to kill me," Sage muttered, her eyes dropping, whether it be from exhaustion or just the pure inability to stay awake in this world anymore. "And all I know is that when she dies, it better be painful and agonizing."

Stiles and Scott shared a look, just like they had done before she got out of the car earlier. Neither boy failed to notice the difference in the blonde's personality; every single thing about her has literally shifted, from her attitude to her health. When she first came back to Beacon Hills, she was guarded and protected.

Still, the girl managed to find salvation in her friends, in Stiles.

Now, looking at her, all they saw was a girl losing her will to survive. It wasn't the strong, independent person that walked into school the first day of sophomore year and ignored the stares. It wasn't the girl that snapped at Jackson when he was being an asshole, or the girl that would put up with Stiles only because she was just as bad.

This girl was something completely different, almost as if everything that made her Sage had evaporated into thin air. Jennifer had taken something from her, the alpha pack had taken something from her, Glen Capri had taken something from her, and Boyd and Erica had taken something from her.

Stiles' words had taken something from her; they had taken that security and that warmth. Stiles words exposed her to the reality that their relationship would one day crash and burn, and she would feel that same utterly alone feeling as she had with Aiden. Stiles, by loving her and saying he didn't want to, had taken something from her.

And she wasn't sure there was much left to be taken.

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"Stiles, what is that?"

Sage's question was barely heard through the storm that was brewing in Beacon, drowning out her words so that she was nearly screaming them in his face. He had been attempting to get her out of the back seat, knowing that she was weak at the moment. While doing this though, his hand also reached back to grab a hold of something she was sure he stole from Melissa McCall.

The boy stared at her, rain literally obliterating the hair that he styled earlier that day, with a wide expression. He was acting as if her question was completely insane, but in reality, a normal person doesn't grab a baseball bat while going into a battle with werewolves and dark druids.

When her feet had hit the ground, he wrapped her arm around his dretched waist before replying, "What? They've got claws and I've got a bat."

Sage shook her head slightly, forcing herself to jog alongside Stiles to catch up to Scott, who was already on his way to the entrance of the hospital. The rain had already completely dosed everything they were wearing in water, the droplets falling down her face and onto the shirt she was wearing.

When she had gotten inside, somehow smug as she watched Derek roughly handle Jennifer, she wasn't that surprised that she ended up back there. Knowing that it was there now, her eyes quickly found the plaque with her father's name on it, trying to remind herself that he was always there for her, Luke too, even if they couldn't be seen.

"Scott!" a voice called out, making everyone turn around to see that Melissa was coming up to her son to try and catch him before he left. "What are you doing here? We're supposed to be evacuating."

Scott was the one that spoke up. "We're here for Cora."

"All of you?" she asked, her eyebrows raising as she glanced at the group of them just before her eyes landed on Sage's neck. "What happened to Sage's neck? And why does Stiles have my bat?"

Sage flinched from beside Stiles, wishing that her leather jacket came with a collar; or, at the very least, she wore something other than a white tanktop, which was now coated in black and red blood along with Mother Nature's gift of rain.

"Mom, trust me," Scott pleaded, his voice running dry as he frowned at his mom. "You need to get out of here. Right now."

Melissa's eyes wandered over to the rest of them, hesitant to allow her son to go without knowing that was happening. But, it was the only thing she could do being the mother of a teenage werewolf.

"The building is supposed to be clear in thirty minutes. We've got two ambulances that are coming back. One is ten minutes and the other's twenty. Cora needs to be on one of those. They'll be picking up in the basement garage," she explained, nodding toward Scott so that he would understand everything.

Scott nodded as well. "Got it."

"Okay," Melissa whispered, allowing her son to leave.

The mother watched as the teenagers walked down the hallway, dripping wet and looking like they had just came out of a battle; but, in reality, the war had just started and Stiles Stilinski was going to need more than just a baseball bat help to them win.

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ne

i swear to you, this whole episode is going to be the death of me. i am only seven minutes into it and i already feel like crying to death from how aggitated it makes me. people make me aggitated to, especially when they say sage is basically being a crybaby & is never okay. like, okay thx.

i hope you guys liked this chapter. it's not really too great because half of it is literally the loft scene which was only THREE MINUTES yet it took almost a whole chapter to write. why do i write in so much detail. it should have just been 'jen b da durrock. lawl u fuked dat thing' then ended there.

but naw. ILY G