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TWENTY FOUR.

Stiles found Sage in the girl's bathroom two hours later. When he asked Allison what happened to her, Allison did her best to explain. Stiles hadn't noticed until then how desperate Sage was to find out who she really was. It made him feel like utter shit that he hadn't even taken into consideration what she was probably going through. She lost her whole family in the Hale fire, and sadly enough, her answers burned with them. There was always the possibility of Peter knowing what she really was, having given Stiles the word that started this whole mess, but Peter was dead. Stiles still didn't trust Deaton enough to believe what he says. That left only one last resort: the bestiary.

Stiles was positive though that when he walked into the girl's bathroom to see Sage leaning up against the wall, hair sticking to her face by the tears that already dried, his heart was retched out of his chest. Making sure there were no girls in any of the stalls and successfully ignoring the growing blush on his cheeks, he slowly walked over Sage, completely silent as he took a spot next to her. He wasn't surprised when she grabbed a hold of his arm, putting it over her shoulder so she had better access to his chest.

He was waiting to feel the shudder of her body, preparing himself for her to start crying again when she didn't. Sage kept her eyes on the tile walls, completely worn out after spending so long convulsing with tears. Thankfully enough, there was only one incident where a couple of girls walked in. Sage's reputation must have gotten around because they were scurrying out of the door before she could even manage a "Go away."

"You know, I never understood why my mom named me after a plant," Sage whispered, her voice rough around certain syllables from crying. Stiles frowned, and leaned down to press his lips to her head. He still didn't believe he finally got the girl. It just sucked that the girl happened to be in his arms for all the wrong reasons. "I guess it all makes sense now, doesn't it? Luke would always tease me about my name, saying it was just all a huge ironic metaphor, but I was too little to understand."

"Sage, you don't have to—"

She looked up at him and gave a small smile. "Yeah, I do."

"Do you remember when we had that Bring-Your-Parent-To-School thing, and everyone was going crazy because my dad was the Sheriff?" Sage nodded, and he saw that her smile got a bit bigger at the thought. "I was always jealous because the other kids were taking all of my time away from being with him, and your mom must have realized it because she came over to me and started to play with that rainbow Play-Doh I was obsessed with."

"Didn't Scott eat that a few months later?" Sage asked letting out a small giggle as she remembered the teacher's going ballistic about the rainbow Play-Doh disappearing. There were a few more incidents like that, she even faintly recalled Jackson believing he could glue his insides together by downing a whole stick of glue.

Stiles scoffed. "I still haven't forgiven him. But your mom was a good person, Sage. Your dad was an absolutely incredible doctor, and we hear every single freaking day how amazing of a player Luke was from Coach. Your family might have died in the fire, but their memories didn't. You didn't. You've got to let it go or you're just going to be drowning in 'what if's'. And do you want to know something?"

"What?" Sage asked, moving from his chest to stare directly at him. Stiles gave a smile before pushing the hair out of her face, wiping the remains of the tears from her eyes.

"I think you look really beautiful when you cry."

Sage stared at him for a few seconds, her eyebrows raising before breaking out into a full on grin, throwing her fist out to carefully punch Stiles on the shoulder. Even though it wasn't as aggressive as normal, Stiles still cradled his arm and let out a series of grumbles. He was trying to give her a compliment and be a good boyfriend then she goes and hits him. Stiles choked out his next words. "What the hell was tha—"

His protest was cut short when lips crashed onto his, healing his shoulder better than anything else ever would. It was becoming a growing routine for the two to cut each other off in the middle of a sentence, and he wasn't sure if he loved it or hated it. Grabbing her face, his hands tangled in her hair, meeting at the base of her neck. Before he could attempt to further deepen the kiss, she suddenly pulled out of it and he was let staring at her wide eyes and puckered lips. "Thank you."

Stiles furrowed his eyebrows. "For what?"

"Being you."

Stiles' cheeks flushed, and she immediately noticed but decided to give him a free-be. She wasn't kidding when she said it either. Had anyone else walked through that door, she probably would have thrown her shoe at them. There was something she felt when she was with Stiles. Like a hollow part in her chest was slowly filling. Sure, it scared the hell out of her to fall in love again, but she never acknowledged just how much Stiles meant to her. He was someone she could laugh with, someone she could cry with, he was someone that she could fight. He, in so many ways, was becoming the only thing she could attach herself to when she found herself drowning in thoughts.

"Uh," Stiles coughed. "We should probably go. School ended a while ago, and everyone is preparing for the game. Which reminds me, we have a plan to get a bestiary from Gerard. Allison says he most likely keeps it in his office, which is where we are going to go during the game."

Sage was sober from her tears, getting up from the floor that probably carried twenty STD's, helping Stiles as well. "How are we going to get into Gerard's office? I'm sure he locks it. If I hid a couple hundred weapons of mass destruction in my cabinet, I wouldn't hesitate to get a deadbolt."

"Allison has a plan," Stiles assured, moving to open the door for her as the two left the girl's bathroom. It probably looked like a bad case scenario considering Sage's hair was completely disheveled while Stiles' looked like he ran a mile from blushing so hard. Not like it would matter anymore, everyone in Beacon Hills seemed to think they were sleeping together despite only just having started dating.

"Allison has a plan?" Sage repeated, wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean. She went to pull off her leather jacket, having given into the temptation to take it back, when a ball of paper rolled out of the pocket. She didn't need to unfold it to know what it was.

Stiles slowly bent down, grabbing a hold of the piece of paper, carefully taking it out of it's crumpled shape. Sage watched as his eyes skimmed across the page before he finally sighed, balling the paper up exactly like she had. Giving her a kiss on the forehead, he nodded, "Allison has a plan."

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Well. Allison did have a plan.

Somehow, the brunette had convinced Gerard into attending the lacrosse game as a way to keep him out of his office and out of the woods. The last thing they needed was for him to walk in on Stiles and Sage rummaging through his cabinets, trying to find one leather book in a whole sea of them. Allison made a note that she would use some excuse to get Gerard to hand over his jacket so she could grab the keys from his pocket. It was a solid plan, and Sage knew it was better than anything herself or Stiles would be able to come up with. They might be good at making plans, they just weren't good at achieving them or making sure they didn't cause any life-threatening consequences. Although Stiles was usually the one accidentally, almost killing people.

It was about thirty minutes into the game and Beacon Hills High was getting crushed. Literally. The Beavers were beating the Cyclones all because of one player on their team. Stiles already stressed enough about that particular player, saying Eddie "Abomination" Abramowitz was going to knock out the whole team, leaving him with a place on the field. Sage would have told him he was crazy for not wanting to play if it was any other game. Not only was Eddie twice the size of Stiles, they also had bigger issues to deal with than a boy nicknamed Abomination.

When Sage looked a few seats up to see that Allison was giving her a smile, Gerard watching the game to intensely to catch the small gesture, Sage quickly got up from her seat. Coach was just finishing up his talk with Stiles, probably finding as many ways to use the word 'defect' in a sentence as a way to describe Eddie. Sage spent a few seconds glaring at Stiles' head, waiting for him to realize he needed to stop socializing and get his ass over.

Stiles must have felt the hole being bored into his head because he turned around to see Sage was standing there, arms crossed, looking like recent events earlier in the day never occurred. Excusing himself from Coach's rant about the originality of the nickname 'Abomination', he jogged over to where Sage was standing. He grabbed her upper arm gently, and the two of them walked as ordinary as they could in the situation. Cold metal was placed into Sage's hand, making Sage grin as she passed the keys over to Stiles.

They were in.

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"Stiles, it's not here!"

The two of them had been ransacking the whole office, even checking in the places where people normally hid things in movies. He had her crawl under the desk and make sure there were no compartments while he literally pulled every single book from Gerard's selection. So far, they were loosing hope on ever finding it. Sage pulled herself up from under the desk, breathing out as she rubbed her face. There was no other place it could be unless Gerard happened to keep it at the Argent's house.

Stiles, feeling just as irritated as she was, snapped. "Yes, I'm aware, Sage. Where the hell is it?"

"I've already texted Allison that we can't find it," Sage said, pacing back and forth as she tried to calm herself down. Just as she went around for the fifth time, she came face to face with another blonde wearing a replica of Sage's brown, leather jacket. She scowled at Erica, growing even more frustrated as she realized the other blonde has not only stolen her black leather look, but her brown as well. She was really beginning to hate this girl.

"Hi, Sage," Erica greeted, her eyes moving towards Stiles who was staring at Erica like he had just been caught redhanded. "Stiles." Sage clenched her fists at her sides, trying to refrain from hitting the werewolf. It was getting harder to do the more Erica tried to flirt with Stiles. The other blonde took a step forward towards Sage's spastic boyfriend, and Sage wasn't fast enough to push Erica away because the girl had a tight grip on Stiles' ear. "Alright, walk."

"And why the hell should I follow you anywhere?" Sage asked, refusing to follow Erica until she told her where they were going. Erica tightened her grip on Stiles because he let out a hiss in pain, giving a look to her that just screamed 'Go along with it.'

That's how she ended up following after Erica and Stiles, somewhat relieved that the werewolf knew not to touch her because it would only end badly. After going through dozens of hallways, Sage became familiar with where Erica was leading them, and grew even more confused. Why the hell was Erica taking them to the pools? Stiles was finally able to stop his moans in pain when Erica let go, Sage not being able to see why they stopped until she moved to stand next to Stiles and not behind him. "Derek."

"Sage," The Alpha greeted, only for her to glare coldly at him. She still had pent up rage when it came to him, and more importantly what he did to her. "As nice as it is to have this little reunion, you're not who I came to talk to."

"Bummer," Sage deadpanned, moving closer to Stiles. "I was hoping we could go out and find some more teenagers for you to bite."

Derek ignored her verbal blow, directing his attention to Stiles. "What did you see at the mechanic's garage?"

"Uh," Stiles trailed off. "Several alarming EPA violations that I'm seriously considering reporting." Sage snorted at his answer, amazed at how he was still able to use sarcasm in one of the worst situations. She honestly had no idea what Derek was capable of doing now. At one point in her life, she believed he would never think of hurting her. Now, she's just tempting him to do it again. Derek, in an attempt to scare Stiles, managed to deflate the basketball he had been tossing around in his hands. "Holy hell."

"Want to try that again?" Derek questioned, raising his eyebrows in amusement.

Sage pursed her lips, doing her best to avoid getting into a fight with Derek. Stiles must have realized it to because he dropped his sarcastic side, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. "Alright, it was kind of slick, it's skin was dark, a kind of pattern, uh. I think I actually saw scales. Okay, is that enough? I have some other really important priorities right now!"

Derek gave an unsatisfied look, making Stiles groan. Sage knew that Derek had enough information to figure out what the thing was, he just wanted to make Stiles squirm. "Okay, eyes. Eyes are yellow-ish, and slitted. It has a lot of teeth, oh! It's got a tail too. Now, are we good?" Sage noticed Derek and Erica's faces both changed from cocky to terrified in a matter of seconds. She wasn't the only one, though. "What? Wha— have you seen it?! You have this look on your face like you know exactly what I'm talking about."

A hiss broke Stiles from his interrogation, and simultaneously Sage and him looked up to see that the thing was literally right above their heads, dangling on the railing above. When a second hiss came out of it's mouth, Stiles grabbed a hold of Sage and the two quickly moved to stand alongside the two werewolves. The thing took it's first target, jumping down and grabbing a hold of Erica's legs, flinging her into the wall. Derek's hand went back, pressing hard on Sage's stomach just as he shouted "Run!". When he turned around, ready to fight the thing, there was a small swing that was so swift it was barely seen.

"Oh my god," Sage spluttered out her words, eyes wide and hands raising instinctively to her mouth. The thing had cut him, an exact match of what happened to the hunter's neck back at Deaton's clinic. When Derek started to stumble, Stiles and Sage quickly grabbed on to either side of his body, hoisting him up. "Come on, Derek."

They stumbled across the center of the pool, nearly toppling over as Derek's body started to grow heavier the less control he had over it. Practically yelling in her ear, "Call Scott!" to which she screamed back that her phone had been left in the car. Stiles fumbled around in his pocket, trying to find his when there was a loud thud and Sage looked to see that his phone had fallen on the floor. She quickly went to object, knowing that if he bent down, his grip on Derek would be lost. But of course, Stiles never listens to her and went to pick up his phone. Sage felt all of Derek's weight lean to the left, which just so happened to be the direction of the pool. She couldn't pry herself away from his body even if she wanted to because of how tightly he was gripping her shirt. She figured it would be like that until he gets feeling back in his legs.

Right before she went underwater, she managed to shout, "Stiles!" And then she was underwater. Her blonde hair fell into her face like a curtain, and she could feel her ears exploding from all the pressure that was in the pool. Tugging on Derek's body, she did her best to kick him towards the surface when another pair of arms circled around Derek's waist, helping her get the paralyzed wolf to the top.

"Stiles, Stiles, wrap his arm around your shoulder," Sage coughed out, feeling her lungs burn. She swallowed a good amount of water on her way down. Stiles did what she said for the first time since they got into this mess, grabbing a hold of Derek's arm so they could hold him up better.

Stiles, glancing around the room, asked. "Where did it go? Do you see it?"

"No," Derek and Sage both answered at the same time. Sage and Stiles were having a hard time keeping their own heads above the water, Sage's height giving her a serious disadvantage.

"Okay, maybe it took off."

A second later, there was a rippling screech echoing through the building. Derek spit out another mouthful of water, wishing he could turn his head and scowl at Stiles, "Maybe not. Now can you get me out of here before I drown?"

Sage laughed in disbelief, "You're worried about drowning? Did you notice that thing out there with multiple rows of razor sharp teeth?" She was still heavily pissed at him, and Stiles let out a groan upon realizing this wasn't going to turn out well. For all that mattered, Derek and her could be put in the same handcuffs for the rest of their lives and that would still be better than this.

"Did you notice that I'm paralyzed from the neck down in eight feet of water?" Derek hissed over at Sage, able to tilt his head to the side to send a dirty look her way.

"I'm sure you didn't notice that Stiles and I are the one's holding your ass up!"

"Shut up, both of you!" Stiles exclaimed, making both parties immediately stop speaking. "I think it's gone. Sage, help me."

The two started to swim with a one hundred and something pound guy weighing them down. Sage could already feel her legs protesting at any movement, no longer having the strength to hold Derek up after being in the freezing water for so long. Just as Stiles was inches away from his phone, Derek was screaming in their ears again. "Wait, wait, wait! Stop, stop!"

The thing suddenly appeared out of nowhere, circling around the lining of the pool but never jumping in. Stiles furred his eyebrows in confusion, "What's it waiting for?" The creature continued to stalk them, going around the perimeter what seemed like a thousand times. It had been a horrific two hours of holding Derek up, Sage's head having gone under at least twenty times as she struggled to find any strength left in her body. Right when she felt Derek slipping, the thing must have grown the balls to try and get into the water.

The only problem was it jerked away like the pool was poisonous. More importantly, what the pool contained. Sage's eyes widened, and she turned to look at the two, "Did you two see that? I don't think it can swim."

"Worst...killer...ever," Stiles huffed out, looking just as bad as Sage did. "I don't think I can do this much longer." His eyes stayed on the phone that was so close yet so far away. The only option he had was try and get to the phone before Derek drowns. His grip starts to loosen, and both Sage and Derek realize what he's trying to do.

"Stiles, I swear to god, don't you dare—"

Derek quickly chimed in agreement. "Don't even think about it!"