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TWENTY FIVE.

"Hey, you okay?"

Stiles watched as Sage got into the car, her hands shaking as she slammed the door closed. He'd been waiting outside of the clinic for nearly an hour, playing around on his phone or texting Scott. Both boys were growing concerned for their long time friend, feeling as though the more this Kanima creature roamed around, the more unstable Sage was becoming. There was always this growing fear of the Kanima being someone the blonde was connected to, therefore complicating the situation even more.

He just wanted her to be okay. After formal, his girlfriend seemed to be holding on to her sanity by a thin string. After finding the word Altor, going off on Allison, Peter's death, and most importantly what Sage had refused to acknowledge the whole way here: why hadn't Sage been effected by Derek's cut. Scott already informed him about the lack of injuries on Sage's body after he fought with Derek's beta's. Stiles could only come up with one explanation and that was that Sage was no longer connected to Derek.

Sage looked up, and nodded a few more times that necessary, "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine."

"What did he say?" Stiles asked, stretching out his words. He didn't want to pressure her into telling him anything but at this point, knowing what she was could possibly be the best thing for them right now.

"Uh," Sage croaked out, "Have you ever heard of an Altor Druid?"

"No," Stiles denied, "I mean, I'm sure I could find something—"

Sage immediately protested, "No, Deaton already told me enough. Um, apparently Druids are able to become all sorts of things. Some become healers, others are guides. He was saying our history is what creates us, so I guess my ancestors loved overdosing in pain." It brought a sickening feeling to her stomach even thinking about how many other people have gone through the same thing; how her brother went through it.

"Wait, so you're a druid?" Stiles asked, furring his eyebrows. "Does he know why your body replicates?"

"He says when I get older, I'll be able to experience injuries before they happen."

Stiles fell back into his seat, surprised at all of the information. When he saw that she wasn't the least bit excited about this like he imagined she would have been, his lips twitched into a frown. Deaton had to have told her something more than just what what she was. Shifting around in his seat, he reached over to rest a hand on her knee. "Sage?"

"I'm fine," She nodded, looking up to give Stiles a reassuring smile. "I'm just a little overwhelmed. I thought knowing what I am, what my family was, it would make things better, easier to understand. I was waiting for some big revelation, but it doesn't really change anything. I'm still going to be in agony every five minutes. I'm still going crazy with questions."

She wasn't going to tell Stiles about what Deaton said about her mother. There was no reason to further worry him because the information given didn't even matter anymore. She was dead, Luke was dead, her dad was dead. Deaton telling her that only made her ask more questions that he couldn't answer. Informing Stiles, with how worried he already was about her, is nothing but a disaster waiting to take place.

She felt Stiles squeeze her knee before moving back to his original position, hands tightening their grip on the steering wheel. "Things will be okay, we just have to survive the rest of the school year. Hopefully summer will be uneventful and boring."

"Yeah, hopefully."

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The next day at school, Sage had yet to see Scott or Stiles. After Stiles brought her to school, they'd parted ways; she had a class on the first floor and he had one on the second with Scott. She absolutely hated walking in the hallways alone. Not having any of her friends by her side left her vulnerable to the stares people still occasionally gave her. It wasn't as bad as it had been during the beginning of the school year, but it definitely hasn't let up. She wasn't sure if it ever would.

Pushing her hair out of her face, Sage went to turn around the corner that led to her next class when she ran face first into a body sporting leather. Trying to refrain from getting a mouthful of strong cologne and testosterone, teenage boy, she backed up as soon as she ran into the person. Well, it technically wasn't just a person. She knew as soon as she smelled the guy that it was Jackson Whittemore.

"I'm going to be late for class, Jacks—" She was shoved into an office, which she soon realized was Coach's, by her friend. It wasn't really an amazing feeling to be back in the office, especially since all of her confrontations in here ended up with almost kissing, or actually kissing someone. Her words fell from her mouth as she felt an overwhelming surge of pain on her bicep where Jackson had grabbed her. "Jackson," She said, trying to jerk her arm from him, only for it to tighten. "Jackson, seriously, you're hurting me."

Her words broke him free of his trance, and he blinked as if he were suddenly aware of his surroundings. Releasing his hold, he frowned deeply before staring at her, "Something's going on with me. I— I can hear things, and....and..." His voice trailed off, and she watched as he swallowed deeply. "I don't know who else to go to."

Sage huffed out, leaning on the desk, "Are you transitioning? Is your body no longer rejecting the bite?"

"I recorded myself on the full moon—"

"You recorded yourself," Sage deadpanned, "Do you know what could happen if somebody got a hold of that video? You'll be sent to some laboratory and used as a lab rat."

"That's the thing, nothing happened."

Jackson adjusted his jacket like he was burning up, pulling at his shirt. She honestly had no idea what was wrong with him because if nothing happened in the video then he obviously wasn't a werewolf. He could always just have heightened senses even after his body rejected the bite, but that was highly unlikely. She would be lying if she said she wasn't concerned for him as a friend, but he wasn't exactly on her top list of priorities considering there was a Kanima roaming around Beacon Hills murdering people.

"Okay," Sage breathed out in exhaustion, rubbing her forehead as she tried to think of a way to fix this, "If anything happens today, text me, alright? If you start feeling weird, or anything like that. I really don't have time to talk because I'm already failing Mr. Anderson's class and I'm trying my hardest not to take sophomore year again. But text me."

Jackson pursed his lips before shrugging off his jacket, nodding his head, "Yeah. Alright. Um, I'll text you." He went to leave, his hand on the doorknob when he turned around, giving her a small smile. "Thanks. I mean, I know I'm not the best friend but thanks."

"You might be an asshole but I still care about you."

Sage watched as he left, readjusting his backpack strap. Pursing her lips, she trudged out of Coach's office, the door slamming shut. The hallway was almost completely deserted, having a few ditchers roaming around the exit while Jackson's figure was dispersing up the stairs. The bell had to have already rang because no one ever gets to their class before second bell. Muttering a string of curse words, she nearly ran to Anderson's class. He, sadly, happened to be one of the many teachers at the school that hated her guts. Harris was, and will always be, her number one, but Anderson lead a close second.

Ever since her first day when she claimed she was nothing like her brother, he had done is best to call her out on everything that was like Luke. Sage hadn't realized until the loads of detentions started piling up how much of a troublemaker she was. Actually, correction: how much trouble she gets into because of the people around her. A good majority of her detentions were because she showed up late, and all of those had been blamed on someone pulling her away right before class. There was always the incident where she voluntarily walked into a four hour detention with Harris but she wasn't ever speaking of that again. Ever.

Today's culprit of her detention excuse was Jackson, seeing as though when she walked into Anderson's room, her teacher didn't even glance up at her as he handed over a detention slip. Grumbling under her breath about how much she hated her friends, she ironically sat down next to one of them. Her brunette friend was doing her best to refrain from a smirk, although Sage already knew Allison was having difficulty keeping her giggles in. Sage had accepted how much she disliked her friends a while back, especially when Allison commented on the growing competition between her and Stiles on who could acquire the most detention's from Harris and Anderson.

Sage hadn't had a chance to speak with Allison about the information she found out from Deaton last night. It was still tense between them, considering Sage's outburst on one of her closest friends changed the atmosphere. She already apologized a few thousand times, to which Allison said it was okay every five seconds. Sage's main goal today was to act as normal as possible after what happened last night. She could barely move any muscles in her body after holding Derek up, and she would be surprised if a real smile ever made way on her face.

"Alright, now that Ms. Connelly has arrived, work with your partner beside you on the assignment on your desk. You'll have until the end of the class period to create a fictional story that must take up a majority of the page," Mr. Anderson instructed them, and Sage bit down on her cheek to keep from snickering at the idea of having to create a fictional story with Allison. She stood corrected, maybe she can actually get a good laugh today. With what was happening in their life, they would just need to write out what's gone down in the past few months and they'd be sure to get an 'A'.

When Anderson returned to grading his papers, Sage turned to see Allison with a shit ass grin. "So, what shall we do? My love life with a werewolf, the non-existent, existent love life that has been banned by werewolf hunters that just so happen to be my parents, or the finally existent love life between you and Stilinski?"

"Nu uh," Sage disagreed, grabbing the pencil from Allison's hand, "There is no way I'm letting you write a love story. We're writing a damn story about a puppy or a kitte—" Sage's sentence was cut short when she noticed that Matt was staring at her and Allison from across the room, looking, honest to god, like he was either extremely constipated or extremely interested in trying to figure out what they were talking about. "Allison, subtly turn around in your seat. Matt Daehler is staring at us."

"Who?" Allison asked, whipping her head around. Sage cried out quietly, grabbing a hold of Allison's arm until they were both at the chalkboard, heads closer than necessary.

"I said subtle!" Sage hissed, making her friend cringe in apology before moving to look over her shoulder. Matt was no longer staring at them, although he had a faint, creepy smile spread across his lips as he wrote onto his paper. She whined, shrugging the jacket that was falling off her shoulders further up. "I swear to god, if he's stalking us, I will forever blame you."

"Me?" Allison stared, baffled. "What did I do?"

"You're pretty. Which means by my association with you, he's staring at me as well."

Allison frowned, "How do you know it's not you he's staring at and I'm the friend of association?"

"Because I'd rather believe it's you that's being stalked instead of me."

Allison narrowed her eyes, and Sage couldn't help but choke down a laugh because it was completely true. If Matt had some creepy obsession with them, she hoped it was Allison instead of her. She didn't need some creepy teenager trying to steal locks of her hair from her brush late at night. Allison might be into that stuff, but Sage couldn't handle it. She'd end up going crazy with anxiety about whether or not he was following her. So, she thought scaring Allison and assuring herself was the best way possible.

"You're a terrible person," Allison deadpanned, picking up the pencil so they could start on the 'fictional' story that they had twenty minutes to write.

Sage grinned, "I know."

♐ ♐ ♐ ♐ ♐

Econ was just as depressing as English.

When Sage walked into the class, being early this time, she dropped down behind Stiles. She had yet to speak to him, so she just dug through the back pocket of her jeans until she was holding up a detention slip. Stiles frowned, taking it from her finger so he could read out the excuse. Scott appeared as soon as Stiles' lips slipped the words 'late' out.

"You got detention?" Scott asked, raising his eyebrows as he reached into his backpack to get the appropriate books out. Sage huffed in her seat, following Scott and pulling out her own heavy ass books that weren't even needed in this class. Coach Finstock was the teacher that droned on about a particular subject that had no relevance to what he was actually supposed to be teaching. She wasn't going to complain though, since this was the only class she actually had a fair grade in. It's not that she didn't know the material in the classes, she just didn't have the time to learn it with chasing beta's and other mythological creatures around. She knew some part of her grade had to do with the apparent relationship that had happened between Coach and her mother in high school.

She chooses not to overthink the situation any more than necessary.

"Again," Stiles added, handing the slip back over to her.

She glared at her boyfriend, "Thanks, Stiles."

"Not a problem, just doin' my job," Stiles cheered, although he died it down when called for people to begin settling down. Sage wasn't really paying attention to who walked into the class, busy carving her name into the inside of the econ book. There were tons of names in the cover, but one stood out the most to her, along with the lacrosse number seventeen. Her eyes would have skidded by it had she not seen the atrocious hand writing of her brother. She had made sure her name was directly next to his, the two Connelly siblings having one of the biggest spots in the book.

The absence of a different brother figure only made her miss her real one even more.

"Hey, testicle left and right, what the hell is a Kanima?"

Sage's body froze, her pen falling out of her hand as she quickly turned to her left to see that Jackson had taken up the seat next to her, leaving her wondering why the hell he was sitting beside her when his designated seat was across the room with Lydia. Stiles and Scott seemed just as cautious about the question asked, whipping their heads around with apprehensive looks. Sage met Stiles' eyes and the two went to open their mouths at the same time just as Coach's booming voice interrupted the conversation that was failing to progress.

"Alright, listen up, quick warning before we begin our review. Some of you, like McCall, might want to start their own study groups because tomorrow's mid-term is going to be so profoundly difficult...well," Coach huffed out in amusement, "I'm not even sure I could pass it. But, I need a volunteer to answer the first question." Sage leaned into her seat a bit, trying to mask her identity using Stiles' body. He didn't even seem to acknowledge her part of the room, going over to the right side where she saw Lydia raising her hand. That wasn't really a surprise though. "Okay, come on. Let's go, buddy!"

While the rest of the class was distracted by Coach's teaching, three teenager's were more concerned with Jackson's question that the one on the board. "Paralyzed, from the neck down. Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

Sage turned to Stiles, her mouth forming a frown as he spoke, "I'm familiar with the situation, yeah."

"Wait," Scott interrupted, "Why would Derek test you? Why would he think that it's you?"

Sage shifted uncomfortably, trying to swallow. There was that guilt retching up in her stomach. She had yet to tell either boy about how Jackson had gotten bitten by Derek, although now it seemed like the best idea considering all of the things Jackson was talking to her about this morning. If that was really happening, she wouldn't be able to handle keeping that secret in.

"How should I know?" Jackson spat through his teeth, keeping his eyes on Scott despite wanting to glance over at Sage. He trusted her, no matter how many times they may fight, he still trusted her more than anyone in this damn town.

Sage sat up in her seat, eyes widening as she glanced into the front of the classroom, "Jackson, does he think it's Lydia?"

"I don't know," Jackson said, shaking his head. "All I heard was her name and something about Chemistry."

"Jackson!" All four teenagers jumped in their seats, hearts beating so rapidly they thought they would explode. Coach had managed to sneak up on them whilst they were heavily invested in the conversation about the Kanima, glaring only at the person who had been speaking at the time. "Do you have something you want to share with the rest of the class?"

"Um," Jackson drawled out, trying to think of an immediate excuse, "Just my undying admiration for my Coach."

"That's really kind of you!" Coach announced with a smile, only for it to fall a few seconds later. "Now shut up, shut up! Anybody else?"

It was only five seconds later that Stiles was being dragged at the shirt by Scott, who was glancing in between her and his best friend. "How do we know it's not her?"

"Because I looked into the eyes of that thing, okay? What I saw was pure evil. When I look into Lydia's eyes, I only see fifty percent evil," Stiles admitted, moving to go back to his work when he decided to tweak his statistics a bit more, "Alright, maybe sixty. But sometimes it's forty on a good day."

"Stiles, that's not a very good argument."

Sage tapped on the desk with her nails, "Scott, it can't be Lydia. There's absolutely no way it's her. Lydia's fine, she's doing better." Just speaking of the girl made Sage look up to see that her friend was still at the board while everyone else had left minutes ago. What was being written definitely didn't look like English though. The blonde slowly started to rise from her seat when she saw Lydia's shoulders begin to tremble. Scott and Stiles kept bickering, never acknowledging that the girl they were talking about looked like she was having a break out.

"Lydia!" Coach shouted, making Lydia's body whirl around. Sage's stomach fell when she noticed how tears were streaming down her face, a look of alarm triggering Sage's instincts to help. "Connelly, sit down unless you want to try answering the question; this time in English."