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THIRTY THREE;

BURNING BLOOD

Most people would say that the war had ended. When the lunar eclipse had passed, the sun rose, and the parents had been saved, a person would have thought that everything would be better. They would have expected to find a pretty, hopeful 'Happy Ever After' on the very last paragraph to tie up all of the events into a bow. Jennifer Blake had finally succumbed to her wounds, or that's what they assumed considering she had dragged herself off before they ever truly found out; Deucalion was out of Beacon Hills and no longer ravage with murderous intentions; and, everyone was perfectly okay. Kind of.

There was the darkness inside of the four teenagers, the feeling that pressed heavy on their hearts every single moment of the day and seeped into their skin with an invisible ink of poison. Each of them noticed it, but not a single soul bothered to actually make a conversation out of the subject. It seemed wrong to talk about what happened, to actually acknowledge that they had officially submerged themselves, literally, deep into the supernatural world. They would never be able to run away from it. It was permanent, yet overly detrimental in order to save the people they cared about. Allison and Stiles both got their fathers back, Scott was able to hug his mother again, and Sage found a part of herself that had been long hidden beneath the ashes of the Hale house.

However, the war was far from over and there would be no happy, no ever, and an inevitable after. Sage knew that this was only just the beginning, and that there were going to be more things that would try to take away what she had left. She knew that the loose grip she had on herself was slowly slipping, every single day it felt as if she was losing even more of who she was. It was a hidden fear nagging inside of her brain, something that she tried to ignore in hopes that it would go away. The things that she had been raised not to fear haunted her, the urges that she suppressed came out unwillingly, and she was left in a vulnerable state of trying to answer questions that never led to a greater path.

She still remembered her friends burning in the house fire, the heat crawling up her skin and clawing at her throat like she was still suffocating in the fumes. Every time she glanced at someone for too long, whether it be Isaac Lahey or Stiles Stilinski, she would remember back to their figures burning to death, the sounds that pierced her ears as she pounded on the door. Nothing could ever change that, not medication that she was sure Melissa would try to put her on, or even the therapy that she knew Deaton was considering for her. She was stuck with the memories, with the nightmares, and she supposed that's what made everything so hard. She did not have the ability to forget like everyone else.

It seemed almost cliche to go back to school now, but Scott McCall had insisted that they needed to try to be as normal as possible even if he was now a true alpha, Sage Connelly couldn't even find it in herself to touch her friends, Allison Argent and Isaac Lahey were a budding romance, the two twins that had made it their original purpose to kill the town were now residing in it, and Stiles Stilinski was questioning everything that he once thought was right.

So, all of the teenagers were back in the hallways of Beacon Hills High, where at one point there was a flock of birds that had committed a mass suicide, Aiden had gotten suspended for the use of a vehicle in the building, Sage Connelly has gotten in fights with Stiles Stilinski in, Scott McCall has promised to be a better student in, and where Lydia Martin nearly died in. Their first half of junior year was proving to be ephemeral, it already having gone by so fast.

It wasn't finished yet, though, because another issue was about to rise in the very building that had grown up with their supernatural atrocities. Scott McCall had walked into the high school, Stiles Stilinski falling on his shoulder as the two grinned at each other. From where they were standing, they could easily see Allison and Isaac come walking down the stairs with equal smiles on their face.

Danny and Ethan had walked out of their sixth period class, holding hands and proving the stereotypes wrong. It was almost comforting to see that two couples were happy together. When the two boys turned their head to the left, they saw that Lydia Martin was leaning along the locker with a smirk on her face as she consulted with Aiden— the two of them had agreed never to meet in the Coach's office again after the strawberry-blonde found out about the past he had with her best friend.It didn't mean they could be acquaintances.

Finally, their eyes settled on the last person in their group of friends, and were surprised at what they saw. Everyone knew that Sage was different, she had been ever since she woke up from the dead, but looking at her right now, you could just tell that the gears running inside of her brain were struggling to turn. Her hair was pulled up messily above her head, and Stiles had noticed the lack of a leather jacket on her shoulders. A part of him suspected that she refused to wear it now that she died in it, just like how it brought a sting to his chest when he got a bit too close to his father's badge. There was something else, something about the way she held herself and the way she walked that differed so greatly from the first time that he saw her again last year.

Beacon Hills was tearing her apart. Sage could feel eyes on her from her place at her locker, grip tightening on the metal before she closed it. The thoughts inside of her were only bad, horrible even, and she knew that if she finally turned around then the whole thing would only become more real. All she wanted to do was run away before she met his eyes, but this was something that she had to do. She had to, at least, give him that.

The blonde turned around, hands tightening at her sides before she took a deep breath. On her venture towards Scott and Stiles, she ended up passing all of her friends. Danny Mahealani and Isaac Lahey both gave her looks of concern, being the two in her life that have given her the most constructive criticism in the time she has gotten to know them better. When she had stopped in front of the boys, she gave Scott a small smile, knowing that it wasn't big enough to comfort him but enough for him to know that she was going to be okay. Then, she turned to the boy she desperately needed to talk to. Stiles and Sage had been playing this game of dodging the subject for way too long, and she was tired of just avoiding everything all together.

If it meant she had to talk to him in the middle of class and risk getting a detention, she would do it. There would never be another detention that could equal up to the ones that Adrian Harris had given her, and there would never be another man that would push her beyond her limitations so that she could strive to become a better student and a better person. Swallowing hard, she stuck her hands into the back of her jeans. "Can we talk?"

"Yeah," Stiles said, nodding once before sending a small look to his best friend. Scott only gave a reassuring smile before continuing to walk, his eyes hanging low to try and get away from Allison and Isaac. Sage grabbed a hold of his hand, guiding him into one of the closest empty classrooms that she could find. Stiles was practically sweating at this point, mostly just because he knew that this was a conversation that had been held off for the longest time; it was bound to happen, he just wished he had a bit more time to prepare himself.

Neither teenager said anything for a few moments, not until Sage glanced around the classroom and a small smile fell on her lips. He was confused at first, wondering why she was so amused by the room, but then he took a turn to glance around as well and realized the exact same thing that she had.

"I always knew that I would be a bad influence," she began, referring back to the conversation they had a year ago when she pulled him into the very room to kiss him, it being only the second time. "You grew your hair out, got a restraining order, fell in love with a girl that's only going to break your heart."

Stiles' lips tugged up sadly, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. "I don't think so. I think I'm the bad influence. I mean, I've nearly gotten you arrested over, what? Four times?"

"Give or take," Sage agreed, the smile widening on her face only to fall flat a few seconds later. Stiles noticed that everything about her posture had changed in that split second, and when she finally looked up at him, he noticed tears forming in her eyes. "Why did we do it?"

"We owed it to ourselves to try," Stiles explained, trying to ignore the sting in his heart seeing the girl refuse to cover her tears in front of him. Sage's lip began to quiver, and she reached her hand up to her mouth to keep herself silent as she sniffled. He could tell that she was trying her hardest to refrain from letting the tears slip, knowing very well all of the signs of when she was going to break down and begin sobbing. Her lip quivering had been the first sign, and her hand moving up had been the second.

She glanced up at him with her watered orbs. "I have to break up with you, Stiles."

He flinched instinctively, having heard those words so many times before but never in such a serious tone of voice. She was always joking when she said it to him, and he had always been messing around when he said it to her. Never would he have thought all of those times had been giving him preparation for when the time actually came.

"Do you want to break up with me?" he asked, his eyebrows raising as he tried to ignore the burning of his eyes; he knew what her answer was going to be, and he knew that whatever came from her mouth was going to be a lie.

"Yes." Stiles had been right about the lie. He knew that there was no way, he knew just by how she was reacting to having to say the single word. Their relationship might not have been perfect, and it might not have been ideal, but it worked for them. They didn't buy each other too many gifts, and they didn't go on too many dates, but they knew that they loved each other.

He knew that she loved him, and all of those moments that he spent questioning it was all for nothing. He had her, and she was perfect. There was a beauty about her that made him fall in love, something that no one else had and no one else would ever have. There was something in those green eyes that gave him a security to know that everything was going to be okay— that they were going to be okay.

Stiles wasn't ready to say goodbye, and he knew she wasn't either. The second that the blonde began to fumble with the ring he had given her for her seventeenth birthday, he had enough. That wasn't something that he was even going to try thinking about noticing off her finger. His hands found their way on both sides of her face, grabbing a hold of her cheeks with little care as he pulled her face towards him. He wasn't sure if she had an immediate response to it, or if his refusal to let her go had any part, but her lips were moving with his within moments.

It was feverish, both of them aching to desperately show what they couldn't bear saying in a conversation. Stiles' hands went to her hair and tangled in the mess of a ponytail as she pulled herself even closer to him by the base of his neck. They were tugging, pulling, pressing on every inch of each other's mouths. He didn't even flinch as their teeth connected when he pulled her lips apart with his tongue. She didn't seem to mind, though, and her nails dug even more into his skin to show just as much adamancy to keep their bodies pressed up against each other. It was almost sad, to watch as they desperately clung onto one another because a part of them knew. They knew that the moment they completely broke away, their quick breaths in between challenging that already, that they would not be in the same position to touch one another anymore.

The heated exchange had been stopped the moment that a tear connected with Stiles' cheek, one that he was very well didn't come from his own eyes. Sage had been the one to pull away, unwanted tears falling freely down her face as she stared up at the boy she fell in love with. He was the one who had given her so many opportunities in life to change, to become a better person that she knew she had lost somewhere along the way. He gave her the hope that maybe she would be able to turn her life around after her family's death, after everything that Aiden had shoved her way and given her the curse of dealing with. He had always been the one.

But, she couldn't be with him. Sage refused to drag him down with her to hell, knowing that there was no way she could ever let him suffer. She loved him too much to give him a future with herself. He deserved someone so much better than her, someone that would be able to love him unconditionally and for the rest of eternity. He deserved someone that would bring him happiness on his worst days, and would dry his tears when he didn't know how to stop them. Stiles deserved a girl that wasn't her, and he deserved so much more than just damaged goods of a girl that could barely take care of herself. The heart that he wanted was already gone, leaving nothing left to love. Stiles deserved someone so much better than Sage.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, pressing a kiss to his cheek before she quickly grabbed a hold of her backpack, her movements more rushed now as she tried to get out of the room as quickly as possible. She flung the door open, barely aware that everyone in the hallway was staring at her dispersing figure. Sage never stopped, never turned back to look and see if Stiles was calling her name. She couldn't look back because she knew if she did, she would fall victim to a broken heart and she wasn't sure she could take that pain again.

The second that she was outside, she found herself moving to the side of the school as nausea swept through her body. Her only support was the wall, which was her support as she felt the contents of her stomach come up. It was a bittersweet pain, something she had grown so accustomed to over the past few weeks that it was nothing anymore. Tears rolled freely down her face, but she knew it wasn't because of the force she was putting into her stomach, and when she opened her eyes, there was nothing more agonizing than seeing that there was no longer blood and mistletoe in her system.

Just pain.

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"Aren't you supposed to be in school getting an education?"

Sage ignored the man, wiping at her face to make sure that there were no tears on her face. The last thing she needed was him commenting about that, just graveling in the fact that her relationship with Stiles was practically destined to crash and burn. Knowing his personality, that would give him just as much joy as watching kittens claw each other apart.

Instead of answering Peter Hale's question, she went to walk past his figure to make her way to her room. That proved to be unsuccessful when he rolled his eyes and grab her upper arm, stopping her before she could even attempt to escape his interrogation. With a clenched jaw, she turned to look at the man. "What do you want, Peter?"

"Why are you crying?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Did someone at school tell you that you looked like you've just been ran over by a bulldozer? And a train? Repeatedly?"

Sage's hands clenched at her sides, not having the patience to deal with the man when she was already running on a short enough fuse now. All she wanted to do was go upstairs and pack a bag. She needed to get as far away from this town as possible, not even giving a shit about where she was going. Peter seemed to catch on that she wasn't in the mood and frowned even further. "You look like your mother when you cry."

"I always look like her," Sage muttered, jerking her hand from his grasp. "Every single day of my fucking life I always look like her, Peter. I can understand that you had some sort of obsession with her, but can you please just stop speaking about the woman every time we talk? About all of them?"

Peter hummed. "Someone's got a bit of pent up rage."

Sage didn't even know what came over her, but the filter in her brain was gone. "I'm just tired of everyone talking about them. I'm done feeling sorry for everyone around me, and I'm tired of apologizing for mistakes that other people make. I don't want to be reminded of them, I don't want to hear their names any more, I just want to forget it all. I just want to forget."

"Well," Peter begin, his arms crossing over his chest as he moved to lean on one of the beams in the living room. "That might be a bit hard."

Sage's eyebrows quirked in confusion. "What?"

"You never asked me what happened that night," Peter answered, giving her a small smirk as he looked down at the blonde. "Granted, there was that short period of time where I was dead after you gave Derek the go for my death, but you've still never asked me what you really want to know. Don't you want confirmation? Don't you want to know what your family did in their final seconds of life?"

"No," Sage muttered, moving to go past the man again to get to her bedroom. She didn't want to know any more about that night. She didn't want to know any more about her mother, not after everything that happened while she was dead. The words that the woman spit to her while she watched her friends burn was permanently branded into her brain, and she knew that if she heard anything about what her family did the night of the fire then she would feel bad. Her mother didn't deserve any ounce of redemption, no forgiveness.

Peter shrugged. "Well, you already know that Luke saved Cora's life and got himself killed in the process. I'm sure she's already told you that, though. Did you know that your father ended up helping me escape? Your father, brother, Cora, and I were all the closest to the exits. Hal ended up sacrificing his own life and burning for the sake of getting me out."

"He shouldn't have," Sage hissed, not bothering to stop as she moved to go up the spiraling stairs. "You didn't deserve to be saved."

Peter didn't seem to mind the girl's blow about his state, rather just continuing. "But, you know what the funny thing is? I saw Talia, I saw all of my nieces and nephews. Your father and brother were there, obviously, but do you want to know the one person that I didn't see?"

The blonde froze in the middle of the steps, Peter watching as her back arched just before she turned to look back at him with an unstable look in her eyes, a pleading one if anything. "Please, don't."

"Oh, I searched and I searched," Peter mused, moving even close so that his hands were wrapped around the railing of the stairs. "But, she just wasn't there. Now, of course, I was curious and the question was constantly nagging at me about where she was, so I had my nurse go and look around a bit. You remember my nurse, don't you?"

Sage's eyes glazed with tears and she began to shake her head in refusal. "Peter, please."

"Because she worked in the hospital, she was able to get into the files of the fire and found all of the death certificates. There were ten total, and eight of them were Hale's," Peter explained, his eyes flickering over Sage's posture to watch as her stability fell flat and she went crashing on the steps.

"Peter."

"And, all I could think about was where would Mallory Connelly go if she was still alive?" Peter questioned, his lips tilting up as he stared down at her. "Then, I figured it out. I'm assuming that you already know, don't you, princess? I bet you knew in your bones this whole time. Every time you thought about her, every time you spoke her name, you knew. Go ahead, Sage. Say it."

Sage's whole posture fell flat, face hardening as she just allowed the tears to go sliding down her face. She wasn't sad, she wasn't happy, the only emotion that she felt right now was pure fury. There was such an agonizing ripping inside of her as she realized her mother had never once been in that fire, and everyone had given her eulogies and speeches for nothing. Her mother had been given a death she didn't deserve. The woman that she spent seven years of her life crying over had never burned in the flames. It made sense, now. It made so much sense that she had been outside of the fire when Sage was dead. The words that she had spoken were now clear, clear enough that the blonde now fully understood what Mallory Connelly had meant when she said she saved herself first.

Sage Connelly stood up, pushing past Peter as she moved soundlessly and emotionless to the chair that her leather jacket resided in. She hadn't put it on since she came back from the dead, but now, she slipped the piece of leather on her body easily before moving over to the drawer of haphazard objects. Her eyes landed on what she desired and picked it up, flicking up the cap so that her thumb could find the starter. The burning hues of an orange flame lit up right before her eyes, and Sage had quickly recapped the lighter so that she could put it in her pocket.

She was completely oblivious to Peter's questions in the back of her mind, all of her sights set on one thing in particular and only one thing only. Her mother hadn't died in that fire, she was still alive. That meant that Mallory Connelly still had a home to come back to, and Sage refused to allow that to exist. Her mother hadn't been in that fire, and she hadn't been in Florida.

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Her home looked the same as it did when she last saw it seven years ago. The place was worn, not having been taken care of in the longest of times, but it still looked the same. Laura had made sure that the place wasn't to be sold, and even though she wasn't supposed to know about it, Derek was still continuing to pay for this place to this day. She hadn't even considered coming back here, not once since Beacon Hills became her home again. The house was even more of a past to her than the Hale's, only because this was the place that held everything. She was raised in this house, Luke was raised in this house, she's made mistakes in this house and she was a child in this house.

When she stepped out of that door seven years ago on her way to go to school, she had taken that ignorant adolescence with her. Even now, with her intentions fully set, she still hesitated as she moved to walk up the worn trail. Much like the Hale house, they lived in seclusion. Her father had made that decision before she and her brother were even born. The farther away they were from society meant the lesser of a chance for people to here Mallory Connelly's screams if something happened to one of the Hale's and her abilities kicked in.

Sage walked forward and onto the porch, where she hadn't wasted another second before opening the door. The first thing that she was engulfed with was the familiar scent of vanilla, which had been her mother's favorite candle scent. The second thing was the hard lump in her throat when her eyes fell on the family picture of all four Connelly's. Slowly, she found herself walking over to pick up the frame so that she could get a better look at the family. It wasn't her's— God, no. This family definitely wasn't her's. The people in this picture were happy, they were alive and vibrant with life. The young girl in the picture had such a light in her green eyes that Sage would never have if she looked in a mirror.

She wasn't sure if her hands intentionally let the frame go or if her fingers had slipped, but the frame went crashing to the ground and shards broke all across the ground, a reminder to Sage when Jennifer had broken the roof of the loft and murdered Kali with the glass. Ironic. The blonde just stepped through the glass with her boots, barely affected by the broken picture because that family had been shattered long before the frame ever hit the floor. Her next stop had been Luke's room, which was just down the hall and across from her own. She knew that she shouldn't be doing it to herself, that walking into his room would just hurt her.

When she walked in, she felt nothing. She thought that she would, at least, feel a small pang of depression but she didn't feel anything, and that would have scared the hell out of her if she could feel fear. Nothing washed through her as she glanced around the dark blue walls, another reminder of a memory when she had told Derek that her brother's favorite color was blue. Lacrosse sticks and trophies suffocated his room, and she could see a faint shade of crimson hidden beneath pounds of other clothes. When she walked over to his mirror, the first thing that caught her eye was a picture of herself and her brother. She remembered that it had been the night of her mother's birthday, the same day that Luke won state for Beacon Hills High.

Her hand was reaching for the picture before she realized it, and put the creased picture in her back pocket. Despite the fact that she was standing in front of the mirror, she refused to look at herself. There was nothing that she wanted to see reflected back at her, knowing that it was only going to remind her of how much she looked like her mom.

She was walking out of Luke's room a second later, her posture changing as she completely ignored her own closed door. Unlike when she first walked in, her steps were more stable and held together as she walked back towards the front door. While she strode over, her hands found the inside of her jacket pocket to pull out the object. Then, she removed the leather jacket that had been a part of her for so long.

Sage didn't give herself enough time to consider the decision before she was throwing the piece of clothing on the ground beside the broken picture, swallowing hard as she took one last look around. Something came over her in that moment, something washed away what she had left as she stood in the center of her living room and breathed in everything of who she used to be. Glancing down at her hand, she flicked open the cap and took slow steps over to the curtains that she had thought were an atrocity for so long. The gear of the lighter was digging into her thumb, and she stood in front of the patterned curtains for a few seconds before she had done the one thing that she should have done a long time ago.

A flame fell on the cloth a second later, the blonde backing away before she caught fire as well, not even bothering to take a glance back as she made her way out the door. There wasn't a sense of satisfaction, nor was there grief as she thought about everything that she was burning up. All of those trophies, all of those pictures, each and every single memory she shared with Hal, Mallory, and Luke was going to be ash in just a few minutes. She walked away, allowing a house to take away her identity for the second time in her life, the only thoughts that ran through her mind being the words that Jennifer Blake had read the first time that Sage saw her. When she introduced the ending, Sage knew nothing about what the book Heart of Darkness meant.

Now, she did. The offing was barred by a black bank of cloud and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky seemed to lead into the heart of immense darkness.

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end of part a.

So, before you guys come clawing at my face for breaking apart Stage, I just want to clarify that she didn't break up with him to be with Aiden or anything like that. Those two are just friends, and will stay friends if I have my way. Sage broke up with Stiles because she didn't want him to suffer through loving a girl that was slowly falling apart. She would rather him be happy with a happy person that someone that was eating themselves away.

This has been my decision from the beginning, and it's such an extreme pleasure for me to know that my ideas have been accomplished for Sage in 3A. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but if you read the ending of this chapter and the beginning of the first book, Sage, then you will honestly see how much character development has been put into this teenager.

I'm extremely excited to begin writing 3B, and I hope that Mallory being alive came as a shock to some of you. I know that a large majority of you assumed one of the Connelly's was still alive, and I did my best to make it seem like a tie between any of them, but she has always been the reigning victor in this equation.

I love you guys so much, thank you for sticking with Sage and I through her journey of part one of Still. Now, who's excited to start reading part two? By the way, this book is probably going to reach around seventy chapters just by the very reason of how much depth I've put into Sage this season.

I hope that's okay. Don't give up on me now.