☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

TWENTY SIX;

BATTER UP

"You don't have to keep me on a leash, Derek. I'm going to help."

There is a horrible feeling that a person gets when they are in an elevator with someone that has tried to kill them. Sage knew this feeling well, especially since she was directly behind the woman that, not only knocked her out, but also proceeded to strangle her with a garrote. The fact that the boy beside her had a baseball bat was probably the most irrelevant thing in this situation, mostly considering anyone or anything he hits will immediately break the wooden bat into splinters.

Jennifer's head tilted back, moving over to Scott, who was glaring at her with his claws outstretched. Then, she glanced over at Stiles and Sage. Just like she had mentioned before, Stiles was protectively holding the bat up to his side while Sage stood behind him, arms crossed tightly over her chest as she leaned on the walls of the elevator, looking unsatisfied about her whole life as she struggled to keep stable.

Clearly, the Darach was unimpressed by the pack's performance.

The door to the elevator dinged, alerting them that they were on the final floor that led them to Cora's hospital room. Derek stepped out first, his hands still holding tightly onto Jennifer's bicep to assure that she didn't escape; the last thing he needed was the woman fleeing the scene and leaving him to watch as Sage and Cora slowly deteriorated right before his eyes.

Because of the storm that was only getting worse outside, the electricity in the hospital was fluctuating from horrible to extremely shitty. Sage isn't going to be surprised when it kicks off all together, another reason why the place was forced to evacuate apart from the whole tree-in-the-window scenario.

When they got to Cora's hospital room, all of them were forced to halt as the man in front of them stopped the second he realized that Cora was nowhere to be seen, Peter having disappeared along with her. Sage's eyes widened, stepping closer to Stiles with her eyes narrowing slightly as she caught sight of a puddle of black blood.

A replication of what she had thrown up just a few minutes ago.

Sage's attention fell from the large selection of blood over to the few drops that were leading out of her hospital room and into the abandoned hallway. Then, she moved her eyes to where the trail had stopped. "Derek."

All of them turned at the sound of her voice, moving from Cora's room over to Sage, who had nodded her head at the closed double doors. The droplets of blood had stopped just before there, signalling that the youngest Hale had to have gone in that direction considering she couldn't have just magically vanished all of a sudden.

The fact that Cora wasn't in her bed was not nearly the most alarming thing at this point, it's the low growls and emits that were flooding behind the door. Even more alarmingly, the man that skidded out of it a few seconds later was the one that had originally be ordered to watch over Cora until she got healthier, or transported to another hospital.

Peter groaned, his eyes snapping open to stare at the group of people. "We have a problem— big problem."

From down the hallway, there was a loud snarl which only made everyone snap their heads up from Peter and over to where the sound was coming from; and, to say that there was a sudden extreme dread that filled Sage's veins is a definite understatement.

The literal voltron wolf was standing in front of them, a merged version of the twins. The last time Sage had seen the thing was when it was ripping apart their pack and making her watch. You can imagine to horrible emotions that she got finally meeting the thing face-to-face again, not even capable of standing with Stiles' support.

To the right of her, she heard another growl sound throughout the room and whipped her head around to witness Derek transitioning into a werewolf himself, canines bared out to the merged wolf. No one around even had a single chance to try and stop the man before he was running forward, hands outstretched to throw the voltron wolf back.

It hadn't even taken a second for the voltron wolf to retaliate, its elbow falling down hard on Derek's spine to send him stumbling. However, the man wasn't going to give up, sending a large blow at their chest which did nothing but make their angrier.

The second that Derek had been sharply hit in the face, Sage let out a sharp cry, moving to run towards her best friend only to be stopped by Stiles' arms wrapping tightly around her waist. Her interruption had caused the single Alpha to look up, somewhat confused; and, in those moments of revelation that Sage was being held back, Scott was able to transition himself and head straight for the alpha.

Sage's attention left the fact that Scott was doing gymnastics on the side of the hospital wall and went to the sight behind the fight, leaning forward to see that a body was on the ground, resembling too much like Cora for it to be anyone else.

The blonde was able to step out of Stiles' grip, grabbing a hold of Peter's arm rather tightly. Despite the collateral relationship they had, he was the only person that could help her get Cora out of the heart of the battle.

Sage's eyes were pleading. "Help me."

The older man nodded once after he saw what she had, and got up from his crouch. Sage felt someone grab a hold of her arm and she turned around to see that her boyfriend was giving her a hesitant look, baseball bat still grasped tightly in his arm. She saw that his own eyes glanced over to Cora and realized that he was silently telling her she wasn't going anywhere without him.

So, with Stiles' help, Sage and Peter managed to sprint through the hallway while Scott was occupied with the voltron wolf. The blonde had made the mistake of stopping just to give a glance back only to see that what she was witnessing had been harder to watch than Cora on the ground in front of her.

"Ethan, Aiden, stop!" she cried, her voicing echoing through the hallway louder than she cared to admit, but they were strangling Scott to death— they were killing one of her best friends right in front of her.

The voltron wolf whipped its head over to the blonde and snarled out, "All we want is her!"

But, by the time everyone had turned their heads upon realizing that they were talking about Jennifer, it was too late. The woman that had been forgotten to help Cora was backing up into the elevator, and no one, not even a werewolf, would have been able to get there on time to catch her.

The voltron wolf let out a strangled snarl before releasing Scott, not taking a single glance back towards the other people in the room before running down the hallway after the girl. Sage watched as they began to leave, swallowing hard to try and regain her sanity.

"Peter," Sage called out as soon as her head turned back to Cora, noticing that there was no way the brunette is going to be capable of walking.

The youngest Hale looked to be in worse condition than Sage, although that was already expected especially considering she had to be hospitalized while the blonde was still, but barely, standing. Jennifer had planned for it to be that way, for Sage to have a slow and painful death so that everyone around her could watch her slowly worsen until death came.

Peter nodded once at the blonde, getting up off the ground hastily so that he could grab a hold of his niece and lug her over his shoulder. With the help of Stiles, the three of them managed to stumble through the next set of doors to try and get out of the hospital.

What they hadn't anticipated was the twins' rage of not capturing Jennifer to reiterate back on them. Just a few seconds after they had came bursting through the doors, Derek came running in a couple of moments later to usher Sage and Stiles out. However, the boy's inability to process a thought that doesn't involve stupidity and near-death experiences proved to have the upper hand over surviving.

"Don't stop, don't stop!" Derek called, only to realize that Stiles had done the complete opposite by stopping, Sage halting in place along with her boyfriend.

The alpha went to grab a hold of the blonde, only for her eyes to widen as she realized she was unofficially just set out to be the bait for the twins. Stiles had abandoned her to go stand by the entrance of the swinging door, bat outstretched and ready to swing. The only bad thing about this is the fact that Sage was already plenty aware the bat was going to end up falling apart into a million pieces.

"Sage!" Derek hissed, going to grab a hold of her arm.

He was too late, though, because the second his arm went out to grab her the doors were swinging open and in came the voltron wolf. Sage's mouth opened in shock, gaping in horror as she questioned whether or not the two would actually kill her in the midst of all of this and after everything they had been through.

Stiles' idiotic plan had consisted of swinging the bat upside the twins' head. Sage had been forced to take a few steps back, nearly tripping over her own feet to get away from the splinters that had flew after the wooden baseball bat broke just like she had expected.

The wolf's range never ceased and Stiles was taking stumbled steps to get away, grabbing a hold of Sage's arm to drag her back as well. The blonde only crashed to the ground at such a hast pull, letting out a small hiss when she collided a bit to hard. She knew it wasn't Stiles fault, it was just him making an attempt to get her far away from the alphas.

However, the twins took a step forward, almost as if it were going towards Sage to help her up rather than move closer to attack.

Scott hadn't known that, though, and made a quick decision to jump up and grab a hold of the ceiling light, pulling the object down so it went crashing down on the voltron wolf. In turn, sparks flew and they had quickly stumbled out of the room. Everyone knew that it wasn't going to stop the twins but it, at least, bought them enough time to come up with a more solidified plan that just whacking them upside the head with a baseball bat.

"Move, move," Derek hissed, his hand going around Sage's shoulder so that he could support the blonde alongside Stiles.

The three of them were farther behind than Peter, who was carrying Cora, and Scott. Everyone knew that it had to do with the fact that Sage was just a even bigger dead weight the longer it took for Jennifer to heal her, which, at this point, ceased to be a possibility considering she had disappeared.

Peter had turned into a room and Sage couldn't be more thankful when Stiles and Derek had guided her in as well, all of the running they had previously been doing ending the second that she had fallen from the two boys' grips and went crashing to the ground just like back in the other room, only this time it happened to be a voluntary action.

Stiles' ended up standing over her, forming a, somewhat, protective stance while Derek shut the doors behind him. Her head went into her hands immediately, trying to catch her breath after exerting herself so much in just the past few minutes. She hated the feeling of weakness, hated knowing that Jennifer had the upper hand.

She hated that, because she was incapable of moving without support, she was holding everyone behind on trying to stay alive themselves.

Peter looked away from Cora to ask Derek, "Where's the big guy?"

"He's close," Derek muttered, keeping a look out for any sign of the twins.

Stiles seemed to realize they were shy one person. "What about Miss Blake?"

Sage paused from below him, trying her best not to flinch so that she wasn't the one who had to break the news to him that the woman who took his father had disappeared and none of them knew where she was going.

Scott, however, did flinch and that ended up giving him the sole right of telling his best friend what had happened. Instead of using words, the boy just shook his head once to alert Stiles that she was gone.

"What do you mean?" Stiles asked, referring to the shake. "Does that mean she's gone? Scott, are you kidding me?"

Derek whipped his head around to face Sage's boyfriend. "Be quiet!"

"Me? Be quiet? Me? Are you telling me what to do now when your psychotic, mass-murdering girlfriend— the second one you've dated, by the way — has got my dad somewhere, tied up and waiting to be ritually sacrificed—"

Stiles snarling at been cut short when Sage pulled herself off of the floor, moving so that she was standing in between her best friend and her boyfriend. Stiles' chest was heaving, eyes narrowed on the man that he had just taken all of his range out on, before they flickered down to his short girlfriend.

"Stiles," Sage muttered, placing her hands on his chest. "They're still out there. I know that you're worried about your dad but you need to be worried about yourself to, okay? Can you please calm down?"

"And they want her, right?" Stiles snapped, frowning at his girlfriend with his rage still bubbling up in his chest before turning back to Derek. "Which means that, now, we don't have her either. So my dad, Sage, and Cora, are all dead."

Scott's eyes flickered over to Sage, who had a defeated look on her face as she slowly let go of Stiles' flannel, a hurt look in her eyes. She knew that she was dying but she hadn't expected for the boy to be so blunt about expressing it to the whole world; if anything, she imagined for him to be the most sympathetic.

It only added on to the increasing idea that he didn't care about her anymore.

Scott flinched, moving his eyes away from the blonde and over to Peter. "Is she really dying?"

"She's definitely not getting any better," Peter admitted, frowning as he stared down at his niece. Then, he turned back around to take a glance at Sage, who was beginning to look just as bad. "Both of them."

"There's got to be something we can do. We have to help them," Scott pleaded, moving his head around just in time to see Sage start to lose her balance, falling to the side and landing directly in Derek's chest, of whom quickly found himself steadying the young blonde.

There was a loud swinging of the doors, and everyone's head whipped back to see that Jennifer Blake was entering the room, a dark expression on her face. "You can't. Only I can. I can save them and I can tell you where Sheriff Stilinski is but there is a pack of alphas in this hospital who want me dead. So, I'll help you, but only when I'm out of here and safe— only then. "

Derek didn't seem to accept her offer at all, giving Sage to Stiles to hold as he flipped a tray of medicine to make his way for Jennifer's throat. He had been stopped before any real damage could be done by Scott, who made sure that the man wouldn't ruin the deal that could save Cora and Sage's life.

"Derek, wait," Scott snarled, ordering the man to hold on before he attacked.

Derek glared at the woman, pointing a finger her way. "She was trying to get out."

"I was trying to keep from getting killed. You can't blame me for that," Jennifer reprimanded, hands calmly at her side to try and explain why she was so quick to make an escape while everyone else was distracted.

Stiles glanced down at Sage and frowned when he realized she was starting to break a sweat. "If you want to show that you're one of the good guys then heal her— heal them both."

"Not until I'm safe," Jennifer denied, shaking her head.

Peter found himself interrupting. "I'd like to volunteer a different method of persuasion. Let's torture her."

"Works for me," Derek agreed, taking a step forward to lunge for the woman.

They had only been interrupted when a voice erupted through the room, immediately stopping the fight that was about to break out between a vengeful ex-boyfriend and his psychotic, murdering ex-girlfriend. Although, hypothetically speaking, there wasn't much time for an official break up so the others were just left to assume.

"Um, can I have your attention?" a voice broke out, only for Sage to realize that it was Melissa and that it was more hesitant and distance that usual. "Mister Deucalion— excuse me, just Deucalion, requests you bring the woman calling herself Jennifer Blake to the E.R. reception. Do this, and everyone else can leave. You have ten minutes."

Sage's grip on Stiles' flannel tightened when she finally understood why the woman was acting that way; Deucalion had her. The man that destroyed her ability to see carnage had the only woman Sage loved enough to consider her own mother. He had the one person that brought Stiles, Sage, and Scott together in a way that couldn't be expressed.

He had Melissa.

"He's not going to hurt her," Jennifer announced to Scott, who had been staring intently at the intercom receiver as though it was going to come back on and his mother would say that everything was okay and she was fine.

But nothing happened.

Derek turned to look at the woman. "Shut up."

"He won't. Scott, you know why," Jennifer explained, nodding once towards the boy. "You know it's true."

Derek raised his eyebrows over at the teenager. "What does she mean?"

When Scott refused to open his mouth, Jennifer gave out an exasperated sigh before moving her mouth herself. "You're not the only one he wants in his pack. Deucalion doesn't just want an alpha pack, he wants perfection. That means adding the rarest of alphas to his ranks."

"A true alpha," Peter interrupted, coming to the realization on his own as he whispered it under his breath.

Stiles frowned, realizing that it wasn't something he knew about about. "What's that?"

"A kind that doesn't have to steal his kind from another. One that can rise by the force of his own will," Peter explained, just before he glanced at the teenager in front of him. "Our little Scott."

Sage fell back a bit, somewhat offended that the boy hadn't told her about his secret, but then she remembered that this whole year so far, she had been keeping her own from all of her friends. Scott didn't have to tell her about the possibility of being a true alpha, she actually should have seen it coming with all the stories her mother used to tell her about them, but it hadn't crossed her mind.

Not until Scott's life was at stake for becoming one; she knew that if he ended up transitioning, Deucalion would be at his throat, conniving and getting inside of Scott's head until the innocence that lived inside of her friend was ripped away. The man would make Scott kill people, manipulate him to do terrible things in front of people he loved.

She knew from experience.

Scott shook his head. "It doesn't matter. We still need to get Cora and Sage out of here."

"Scott, your mom—" Sage went to interrupt, well aware that Melissa's life meant much more than her own.

"My mom said there is one more ambulance coming in twenty minutes, and I don't think we've been here that long. So, if we can get down to the garage and get to that last ambulance, we can get out of here."

Peter frowned. "The twins aren't going to just let us walk out."

"They would let her, though," Jennifer commented, her eyes narrowing in on the dying blonde across the room, well aware of everything that the teenager had done and everything she was hiding from the people in this room.

Sage's body went rigid, and she stared up at the woman with a cold stare. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know that they won't hurt you," Jennifer replied, raising an eyebrow. "I know that you could distract them long enough for the rest of us to get away."

Derek snarled at the girl. "It's not happening."

The room was cold, almost as if everyone was slowly beginning to put all of the pieces together but not having enough time to finish the puzzle. Right now, they needed a better idea than sending out a dying girl to distract a pair of alphas that can form into an even bigger voltron wolf. They didn't half enough time to contemplate Jennifer's words.

"I'll distract them," Scott offered, turning to the others as to break the tension wafting in the air.

Derek quirked a brow at the teen wolf, reiterating his words. "You mean fight them."

"Whatever I have to do."

"I'll help you," Derek agreed, nodding once; he had everything to fight for and he had every reason to knock the twins' on their asses after everything they've done to destroy his best friend's life.

Jennifer was quick to interrupt. "Um, sorry, but I'm not going anywhere without you, Derek."

"Then I'll do it," Peter offered, him being the only other one capable of doing anything of any supernatural sort. "But, I'd prefer to be out there with an advantage."

Stiles, who had been silent ever since the blow to Sage, finally spoke up. "Advantage? What, you mean like a weapon?"

"Something better than a baseball bat."

That ended up turning into a five minute search for anything that could potentially inflict bodily harm on Sage's old friends. Derek had sent her a look the minute they broke away, a warning of some sorts that she needed to tell her friends her past before someone like Jennifer revealed it. She was already running on a thin wire with Cora's comment, and now that the fucking psychopathic bitch went ahead and further increased the change of someone finding out, she was screwed.

She was, overall, extremely screwed.

"Hey, wait," Stiles called out, getting everyone's attention to show them that he was holding up at defibrillator . "What about these?"

Sage, from her place on the ground, let out an exhausted sigh. "Stiles, put them down. You have no idea how to use those."

The boy seemed to frown a bit, discouraged as he slowly set the object down before going on to look for something else in the room that could possibility help them. Sage, once again, felt useless sitting there but her inability to move only gave her more time to glare at Jennifer.

She really hated the girl.

"Epinephrine?" Scott asked, more to himself than to the others.

Derek glanced back, shaking his head. "That's only going to make them stronger."

While Derek saw it as a weapon that could be used against them, Peter saw it as a weapon that they could use in their favor, turning his attention away from his own search to narrow his eyes in on the syringe of Epinephrine.

"How strong?"

☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

ne

do u hear that? thats the sound of me drowning in my tears for this episode. im sorry if this chapter ultimately sucked; there was so much fighting and sage stumbling that it got to the point where i just gave up halfway through and sought out for food and music. but, then i realized that i only have three days before hell hole starts back up and my life is ruined once again :-) :-)

i hate my life tbh

so, i know that ive been updating a hell of a lot lately, and it's just because im trying to finish 3a before my christmas break ends. which, if you were wondering, ends on monday. in three days. so you're going to be getting like mass updates from me as i struggle to keep my own sanity whilst sage is losing hers.

koala. okay. i love you guys; comment and tell me wat u think about this shitty chapte.r.