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CHAPTER SIX; 06

"Excuse me, where do you think you're going?"

Sage raised her eyebrows, arms crossed as she stared at Derek. He was halfway out the door, but his whole body froze up when he heard Sage speak. She slowly walked forward on the heels of her boots, creating a small clacking sound on the hardwood floors. Derek sighed before turning around, staring down at the short teenager.

"Scott and I are going to look for the alpha," Derek said, shifting on his feet. He felt like he was being interrogated by his mother, especially when Sage was glaring at him like she was his mother.

"I'm coming with you."

Derek snorted, turning around to leave again. "No, you're not."

"Yes, I am," Sage disagreed. She stepped forward, grabbing a hold of his bicep as she forced him to turn around. "I'm getting tired of you running off on your little solo career. You've already been shot, Derek, and I really don't want to see the alpha shove his claws into your chest and mutilate my body just because you think you can run around being some bad-ass superwolf. So, yes. I'm coming."

Derek's jaw visibly tightened, and Sage believed for a second he was actually going to say no once again, but when he dug into his jeans and pulled out the keys to the camaro, she knew she won. "Meet us at the school."

"Love you," Sage grinned, walking past Derek.

She had only gotten to the porch when the back of her neck began to burn, and she let out a small cry, alerting Derek straightaway. He appeared at her side, raising up her hair while she tried her hardest not to claw at the wound. She already knew that there were small, penetrated claw marks, they randomly appeared on her body the day Derek got shot.

"What is this? Sage, what is this?" Derek hissed into her ear. She shrugged him away from her body, and then moved her shoulders awkwardly to try and dwindle the pain.

When her hand connected to the back of her neck, she choked out in surprise. "I need to go. Something's wrong with Jackson."

She quickly jogged down the porch steps and towards Derek's car, slamming the door when she finally got in, trying to drive as expeditiously as possible while adjusting to the terrain of the forest. When her fingers touched the wound, she knew immediately that Jackson was the one in danger, that he's the one who has the actual marks on his neck. She also knew that Derek was the one who inflicted them.

Something in the back of her mind, or should she say her neck, took dominance of the steering wheel. She felt as though all her control suddenly shifted, and she was just pressing the petal and following street signs she had never seen before. She was even more disoriented when she landed herself a spot in a video rental store, a place she hadn't ever been. The parking lot was abandoned, aside from a car directly beside the Camaro. She didn't even need to look over to know that it was Lydia.

Sage just got out of the car, walking into the store to try and find a certain lacrosse player. "Jackson?"

"What are you doing here?"

Sage whipped her head to the right to see Jackson staring at her, eyebrows furred tightly as he checked her out. She let out a deep breath, then walked over to him. Before she even gave him a proper greeting she wrapped her arms tightly around his body, giving him a hug.

She did this for two reasons, the first being that she was generally happy he wasn't dead even though she had those days were she wanted to kill him, and the second being she needed to see the back of his neck, and she couldn't just grab him and yell, "Hey, Jackass, let me see your neck."

"Uh, okay," Jackson muttered, before pushing away from her body. "Lydia is right outside—"

"I'm not trying to have sex with you, Jackson. I'm making sure you're okay."

Jackson stared down at her, narrowing his eyes before nodding. "So you wouldn't happen to know where The Notebook is, would you?"

Sage raised a brow at him. "Do I look like I would know where The Notebook is?"

"Obviously not. Hello? Is anybody here?" Jackson called out, trying to look for any workers in the store after coming to the realization that the blonde next to him wouldn't know anything about where the romance movies were.

It was dead silent in the video store, apart from the small buzzing that the broken light emitted throughout the empty place. Sage had split apart from Jackson, taking the next aisle to try and find the movie that Lydia was no doubt convincing him to watch for her own amusement in seeing him suffer.

Sage took the wrong turn, and instantly she felt her whole chest constricting as she stepped into a puddle of blood. She couldn't even bring herself to scream when she saw the slashed neck of the worker. Immediately, her head began to pound as she tried to blink away the sight, only one thought in mind and that was to make sure Jackson didn't see.

"Jackson, get away from here," She retched, moving away from the body when she saw that Jackson was about to see the dead guy.

She pushed on his chest, trying to get him to move away but she knew it was too late; he had already seen everything, his eyes widening as he gaped at the dead body. The blonde in front of him continued to shove on his chest, more capable of withstanding the gore than the lacrosse player.

"Oh, my god," Jackson stammered, tripping over his feet as he grabbed a hold of Sage's wrist, trying to pull her away by a sudden instinct. He didn't want her near the blood as much as she didn't want him.

While tugging too hard, he managed to bump right into the latter that was under the broken light. It hastily fell, and Sage felt the sparks sting her skin just as she shoved Jackson away from the electricity. It seemed like all she was doing now was shoving and trying to get the boy away.

The lights in the rental store extinguished and they were engulfed in darkness.

A low snarl flooded the room, and the two whirled around to see distinct, red eyes glaring at them. Sage knew, then, that Derek and Scott weren't going to find the Alpha at the school, not when it was currently crouched directly in front of them.

Eyes widening,Sage pulled Jackson down to hide, making sure he was the one on the end in case anything happened and she needed to abruptly shove him out of the way; or, rather into the crossfire and buy herself some time to get away.

When he started to look over into the aisle, she quickly grabbed a hold of his arm, tugging him back before the Alpha managed to rip his face open. Knowing how werewolves worked, she definitely wasn't holding it against the creature to try.

The Alpha made another movement as he circled around the two, the impact creating a ripple of movies to fall on top of them. That didn't amount up to the horrific sound of banging, Sage already making an assumption as to what was happening.

Jackson was slower, and Sage understood they both wouldn't make it out from the crashing of the shelves, so she did what she knew her brother, or even her parents would do; she pushed Jackson out of the way and let the shelf crush her, leaving her staring up at the ceiling with tears brimming in her eyes, coughing out as the wind was literally knocked out of her.

"Sage!" Jackson cried, falling to his knees beside her as he struggled to lift up the tens of pounds of movies.

It was no use; she was stuck, and she knew it. This was her decision, though, and she knew that she made the choice to let herself get caught under the weight instead of Jackson. He might be arrogant, but that didn't mean he deserved to die not knowing what murdered him.

Rather than freaking out, she took a few deep breaths before looking up at Jackson.

"Jackson, go," Sage ordered, flincing when she moved her wrist only to feel it was stuck.

The lacrosse player stared at her with exasperated, wide eyes. "What? No! I'm not leaving you here to end up like that guy!"

"Jackson, I said go!" Sage repeated, her voice more hostile this time as she glared at him. She couldn't believe that, for once in his life, he was actually caring about someone other than himself.

Jackson hesitated before running out of the store, his shoes hitting the ground as he quickly exited, no doubt going to call the police that would get here too late if the Alpha's goal was actually set to kill.

Sage was left alone, the movie shelf was slowly cutting off the circulation from her waist down, and she knew she was going to faint as the blood rushed to her head. Doing one last attempt to push it off, she cried out in frustration when it didn't work.

There was a sudden rippling growl that echoed through the dark room and Sage went rigid, her whole body falling still as she refused to move a single muscle. She could feel a hot breath on the side of her face, but didn't dare direct her eyes that way in fear of the interaction further tempting the Alpha.

When something sharp began to trace the outline of her cheekbones, nausea began to build up in her stomach. He, it, was going to kill her. Derek was going to be alone, left to stand at yet another funeral for someone he cared about.

The claw that belonged to the Alpha was careful, soft. Sage couldn't help but swallow hard, finally catching onto what it was doing: it wasn't taunting her, it was carressing her face, almost as if it knew her.

All that she was aware of was that the weight holding her under was suddenly lifted, and she could feel her legs again as the blood began to circulate through her body again. That was all she remembered before she saw the glaring, crimson eyes of the animal and the hold she had on her consciousness slipped, leaving her in total darkness.

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"I said, I'm fine," Sage snarled as the paramedic muttered once again that she should go to the hospital without further delay. She had woken up to a flashlight being glared in her eyes, the incessant woman making her want to claw her eyes out. "Now, when can I leave?"

She really just wanted to get as far away from this situation and Jackson Whittemore, already feeling herself weary about the whole idea of the Alpha knowing her. The only comfort was when she wrapped her arms tightly around herself, trying to block out Jackson's shouts from across the parking lot.

"Miss, you passed out. We need to make sure that you don't have a concussion and that none of your ribs are broken or fractured," The woman stated, putting the blood pressure cuff on her arm.

Sage hissed when she felt it get tighter, knowing that it was being placed in the same area that Jackson had repeatedly grabbed and jerked around. "Do you want me to give you a concu—"

"Sage?"

Sage let out a deep exhale before turning to look for who was calling her name. Seeing that it was the Sheriff's son had to be the highlight of her night because she knew he could get her out of this mess. She just wanted to go home— a home that no longer felt safe for her to go back to after tonight's events.

Stiles appeared at her side, and Sage ignored the paramedic's protests to move when she grabbed his neck and pushed her face into his shoulder. This hug was different from Jackson's; this one wasn't forced, or planned. She just needed someone right now, someone that wouldn't call her crazy when she said that the alpha seemed fond of her.

She needed someone that wouldn't call her crazy for thinking the alpha wanted to help her; she just needed Stiles.

"Please get me the hell out of here," Sage croaked into his neck, begging for him to take her away from all of the chaos that was being created around her. Attention was never something that she craved but right now, she had it all.

Stiles could feel her trembling.

Hell, he could visibly see her trembling, even when she was yelling at the lady as he arrived on the scene. He nodded once into her hair, his face heating up when he saw Jackson staring at the two from across the parking lot, Lydia to the right of him looking just as shaken up about the whole thing.

Stiles was startled when he saw the strawberry blonde, having come to the conclusion before that it was just Jackson and Sage involved. One side of him wanted to pull away from Sage and run up to Lydia, but the other side just wanted to keep holding her, make sure she was okay.

Stiles felt that sick feeling come back, and he pulled away from her, trying his best to smile as he searched for his dad. He had only seen the lights at the movie store, and was instinctively drawn to the place with his curiousity towards anything involving the police and his father.

When something began to roll out of the rental store, he practically cried out. "Oh, my god. Is that a dead body?"

Sage let out another series of trembles and turned away from the corpse, meeting eyes with the brunette boy. "Stiles."

He nodded before wrapping an arm around her, guiding her to his dad's cruiser. When she got in the back, he wasted no time sitting down with her, any thought of a strawberry blonde ceasing to exist when he pulled the blonde closer to his body.

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The next day, Sage found herself drowning in rumors.

She had only been in the school for a minimum of twenty minutes when people started to talk behind her back. Some were saying that she had gone insane and killed the man then staged the whole thing with Jackson and the broken window, others were just waiting for her to get pissed and actually kill someone, and the main one: people were waiting for her to crack under pressure because finding a dead body reminded her of her parents.

She guessed that it was true enough.

Finding the dead body did remind her of her parents, but not in the way they thought. It reminded her that her parents had died protecting the Hale's, and now she had to take on the responsible of sacrificing her own life for her pack if the time came. Scott, Stiles, Jackson, Allison, Lydia, and Derek were now her only concern. The alpha wanted them, it wanted Scott.

And she would do everything in her power to keep that from happening.

"Hey," a voice broke from behind her, enough for the blonde to jump slightly, having been easily startled by anything and everything after the events that happend in the movie store.

Sage turned around, surprised when she saw Allison standing there. "Uh, hey."

"How are you? I heard about the whole—" she stopped, pursing her lips as she pondered whether or not to actually bring up what happened; Sage didn't have PTSD, she just didn't enjoy speaking about finding a dead body.

She wasn't expecting any less from the Argent though, she probably looked like complete shit, too fragile to late the heat of the flame. When she got to the Hale house, she was given a full-body inspection by Derek himself. The man wasn't pleased to know that she had nearly gotten herself killed after only being in the town for such a sort amount of time.

For some reason, too, ever since the night with the Alpha, Sage refused to step foot in the house, rather deciding to take place at one of the motels around town. Derek said he would get something situated for her eventually, obvious to her discomfort towards the house her parents died in.

"Yeah. I'm fine, Allison. I should get to class though. Harris acts like someone shoved a tampon up his ass when someone's late," Sage said, pointing her thumb back to signal that she needed to leave.

"Oh! Of course, yeah. When you're feeling up to it, maybe we can hang out, sometime?" Allison asked, hopeful.

She had Lydia, but for some reason, Allison felt as though she needed to be friends with Sage. It was a strange sensation, and she has been meaning to catch up to the blonde but never had the chance. Sage seemed like better company that the strawberry blonde, because although Allison enjoys Lydia's prescense, she need someone else to balance out everything else.

"Yeah, totally. Happy birthday, by the way," Sage said, stifling a laugh when she saw Allison's shell-shocked face.

She turned away before Allison could ask about how she could possibly know that it was her birthday. The only reason Sage actually did know that was because Derek made sure to dig up as much as he could about the Argent's after Scott was shot the night in the wood. Sage faintly remembered Derek even dating an Argent around the time she just turned ten.

Allison's birthday just so happened to be one of the things Derek Hale managed to find.

Sage almost jumped out of her skin when the bell rang, growing really tired of how jumpy she has been acting lately. "Great."

She showed up to Harris' class late, and everyone was staring at her like she was a mythical creature they'd never seen before— or a condom because god knows, these kids don't know how to wrap it before they tap it.

It's like the first day all over again, Sage thought.

They were waiting for her to obliterate into tiny pieces, just like they did when she showed up on her first day. Yeah, maybe she got a bit startled with the alpha thing but she wasn't going to let a bunch of teenage douch hats think they could bring her down with their stares; she was stronger than irrelevant adolescents.

"It's impolite to stare," Sage snapped before taking her place in the front of the classroom. She could feel their stares on her back as she pulled out her books, setting them down on the table.

Harris seemed to sense her dismay, and started speaking again. "Has anyone seen Scott McCall?"

Sage looked back at her teacher, and saw him towering over Stiles. It made sense now as to why Allison wasn't heading to her class. She was ditching with Scott, most likely for her birthday. When the door opened again, Sage rotated around to see that Jackson was the one coming into the classroom late, taking a seat directly next to her. She didn't bother telling him that this wasn't his seat, and that it was actually Scott's.

"Jackson, if you need to leave early for any reason just let me know," Harris spoke, almost sounding sincere for once. Sage didn't even look up from her notebook when he tried speaking to her. "The same goes for you, Sage."

Jackson must have nodded because Harris backed away from them, going up to the front of the class. "Everyone start reading chapter nine— and Mr. Stilinski, try putting that highlighter down between paragraphs. It's chemistry, not a coloring book."