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CHAPTER TWO;

BROKEN CHEST AND REPEATING HISTORY.

It felt like a walk of shame to her desk in her first period class, English. She thought that her head was about to explode with the stares coming from Lydia, Scott, and, most importantly, Stiles. Her strawberry blonde friend was looking for a completely different reason, curious as to why the blonde ditched her and Allison so quickly while Scott and Stiles had been led to the assumption that she was screwing two boys in the janitor's closet. Which was, quite literally, the opposite actually. She was still fuming, seconds from ripping anyone's head off who accidentally shoved into her. Aiden and Ethan's abrupt return into her life meant more than just an, "Oh, hey, sorry to randomly show up all of a sudden. By the way, we're probably going to be killing more people in the process. So, stay out of the way or we'll kill you too."

The last time that they saw each other, the boys were dragging away the bodies of their pack members like they were nothing but collateral damage in a game that had been much bigger than Sage had been ready to handle at the time. She was one hundred percent sure that they hadn't lost their homicidal tendencies, and feared that this junior year was going to be more gruesome than sophomore year given the fact that they had already experienced a minor accident turned major when a deer ran straight into Lydia's car, as well as the return of the evil twins from the archived past that the teenage girl ran away from a year ago. She just felt it in her bones, like something was crawling up from her spine and screaming, "Run."

Sage slammed her books down hard on the desk behind Greenburg, one seat diagonal from Scott. There was still an open seat right in front of him, but that would also mean her being even closer to Stiles, and she wasn't feeling very encouraged to be anywhere near him. If that meant sacrificing her sanity by sitting behind Greenburg, she was all for the idea. The blonde was irritated with the expectations that her friends had for her given the fact that there was no real proof, especially with Aiden and Ethan of all people. She was also pissed off that he was acting like she just committed a sin when she didn't even do anything, yet he was the one texting some other girl in what could seriously be taken the wrong way while he was spending time with his girlfriend. She wasn't going to be the one apologizing anytime soon, not when she had nothing to feel sorry for.

To further add onto her list of reasons why today sucked ass, Greenberg thought he had the right to turn around and grin seductively — what he thought was seductively— at her. The kid, even after last year when she continuously shot him down, was still trying to reek havoc in her life. "Hey, blondie. How've you been over the summer? Did you and Stilinski finally ruffle the sheets?"

Sage narrowed her eyes on the lacrosse player. He had spoken loud enough to assure that everyone in the vicinty of him heard it, and sadly, the few people in that small vicinity happened to be the people that wanted nothing to do with her right now. She heard a small choking sound come from behind her from the result of shock and disbelief, but she didn't need to turn around to know that it was Stiles. Clenching her fists tightly, the blonde leaned forward a bit. "Did you finally realize that you're going to die a virgin because of your unusually minuscule dick size?"

Greenberg's eyes widened, and while everyone around laughed at Sage's comment, she couldn't even bring herself to smirk. His comment struck too close to home. With her relationship on the outs, the last thing she needed was for someone to publicize her sex life with that person. Stiles and her hadn't done anything yet, not because she didn't want to but because she wanted to wait. She loved him, she did, but she didn't want him to fully commit himself to her in such a way when there were still secrets being kept between them.

The teenage boy, in an attempt to redeem himself, glared at Sage. "At least, I didn't hook up with the two new guys."

"We wouldn't be surprised if you did," Sage all but snapped at the teenage boy, her hands gripping the sides of her desk as she realized the boy literally thrived off the absolute hatred she had for him. The blonde was open to committing murder at that very point in time, it reflecting in her eyes so clearly that Greenberg stood down from the high pedestal that he thought he could stay on. The teenage girl wouldn't deny that homicide could very well be on her record, because at this point, she could only see herself strangling him right now. She was too engrossed in wanting to stab the kid to death that she barely noticed Allison moved to sit next to her.

Livid, Sage went to grab a hold of Greenberg only to feel someone stop her, their hand wrapping around her wrist to prevent her from doing anything. Sage turned around to see that Scott had been the one to lean forward, stopping her from doing anything that she would eventually regret — like stabbing Greenberg in the jugular with her pencil. Coach Finstock would pay for her bail, so she didn't need to worry about that.

"Don't," Scott demanded, giving her a stern look when he noticed the scowl that crossed over her face the moment that he grabbed a hold of her wrist.

Over the course of the summer, Sage found that Scott was tuning into his werewolf side more. With the help of Derek, it was clear that he was no longer an amateur that the blonde was forced to babysit every other second. Scott was stronger, more confident. That means that he was unofficially the leader of the pack that Sage had connected herself to. It made sense. He wasn't an alpha, and she didn't see him ever becoming one unless it was a righteous act as opposed to one of vengeance, but people understood him. People listened to him, his opinion weighing heavy on everything as everyone looked to him first. He was her best friend, and she was naturally going to respect his choices, but the choices he made were also fit for someone that knew what they were doing. She could slowly see Scott becoming more than just a teen wolf. Hell, he already was.

Sage felt her fists go flat in understanding and she gave a small nod, blinking a few times as she moved to give a side glance towards Stiles. The teenage boy was leaning his head on one of his arms, trying overwhelmingly hard to ignore the situation that was happening to his right with his, on the outs, girlfriend and his best friend. From Sage's perspective, he looked completely removed from the events happening. He looked done; and if he was done, then so was she. She wasn't going to fight for this relationship if he refused to talk to her. Granted, she wasn't talking to him either because she knew the outcome of it. The same exact thing happened when she first confronted him about the texts from Heather. There was a lot of screaming.

Turning back in her seat, ignoring the looks of concern and outright confusion that Lydia and Allison were shooting her way, she tapped on her desk as she waited for the new English teacher to come in. Her wait didn't last long, though, because the only sound in the classroom was an eruption of ringtones. With furred eyebrows, everyone pulled out their phones to see that they had one new text message. Sage had gotten through the first sentence before a voice cut off her mental reading, speaking the same words out loud.

"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," the woman who walked into the classroom, read off to the class from her own phone. She had brown hair, long enough that she looked youthful, but short enough to look professional. Overall, she was an incredibly pretty woman that didn't fit the bill of her profession. She didn't look suited to be a teacher, especially not one teaching adolescent seventeen year old's.

Sage reviewed the words that were on her phone, much like the rest of the class, trying to understand the meaning behind it. She came up completely empty after a few minutes, not sure what it meant aside from the fact that a heart of darkness was a metaphor. No one could literally possess a heart of darkness, not unless they were born with evil or bred into it. She locked her phone back up, the idea in her mind that the passage would only be relevant in her class. For the time being, at least. Soon enough, this paragraph would be a sentence of her life. She didn't realize that she would be lead into the heart of immense darkness, and maybe that was why she evaluated the words like they were a message sent directly to her— a warning. Maybe, they had been intended to directly refer to her the entire time with no knowledge of it in the first right now. Right now, the only thing that Sage was focused on was how every word in this sentence sounded nothing like English.

The woman, Ms. Blake, gave a small smile as she nodded towards everyone, setting the phone that was in her hands down on the desk behind her. Sage wasn't even going to ask how she managed to get their phone numbers, knowing that the answer might be better left unsolved. "This is the last line to the first book we are going to read. It is also the last text you will receive in this class. Phones off, everyone."

Sage didn't turn off her phone. Unlike everyone else in the class who complied, she wasn't going to be that one idiot that actually listened and something ends up happening. It wouldn't the first time she's logically declined a teacher's request, especially one that happened to shut her off from the rest of the world -- a supernatural one, too-- for an entire hour. It wouldn't seem like a long time for any people, but to her, that was a thousand different chances for someone to do something while everyone else just sat in English class and read a stupid book. The expression reflecting the woman's eyes deemed too innocent to actually be real, Sage finding out from first hand experience that no one is ever as clean as they deem themselves to be. There was no way she was going to just shrug off the whole thing. It wasn't in her nature.

Twenty minutes into class, Ms. Blake had given the class a book assignment to work on for the time being. Overall, she was a good teacher, but she didn't give them leniency to talk, which was why Scott and Allison had begun to exchange notes as inconspicuously as possible. Sage was too engrossed in finishing her work ahead of time, knowing that if she did, there would be less homework for her to finish on the first day. All she would need to do when she got back to the loft was shove all the irrelevant paperwork in Derek's face so that she could get the year started — and, then, get it over with.

"Mister McCall," Ms. Blake announced, making heads shoot up around the class.

Stiles was one of them, furring his eyebrows in confusion as he watched his best friend walk up to his awaiting teacher. The two of them had a quick conversation in front of the class before he was being taken outside, out of audio and open eye. Shaking his head, Stiles moved to turn back to his work but got distracted when he noticed that a few rows to his right, Sage had stopped her writing. He figured that it was just because she didn't want to do it, or had already finished, up until he sat up in his seat to see that there were small droplets of crimson red on her notebook paper. Immediately, despite himself, he let concern wash over him, especially when she brought her hand up to her nose and pulled it back to see that it was covered in even more blood.

Sage stared down at her hand in confusion before getting up from her seat, holding her nose to keep the blood hidden from her peers. She grabbed a few tissues that Ms. Blake had put in the front of the classroom, pressing them up against her nose to try and stop the bleeding. She hasn't had a nose bleed in years, not since she was little. They weren't common. Her brother may have gotten them on particular occasions but never just from a spur of the moment thing. That was all because of his lacrosse injuries though.

Looking up, she noticed that Stiles and Lydia were quietly conversing with each other, glancing at her a few times. Stiles raised his eyebrows in question, like he was trying to prove a point to the strawberry blonde. When Ms. Blake came in, she gave Sage a small questioning stare before walking over to the board. She didn't even bother asking why Sage was holding her nose, nothing. So either Harris had gotten to Ms. Blake and babbled on about how terrible of a student she was, or Ms. Blake just didn't give two shits about Sage, unlike Scott, who she dragged out into the hallway just to let him know he was excused for the day.

Sage was really feeling the love from everyone today.

As she made her way back to her seat, purposely slamming her knee hard into Greenberg's arm as to mess him up, Allison looked over at her in concern when she plopped down into her desk. The brunette had noticed a change in the girl ever since she came back from France. Sage was more hostile towards people, angrier, and not to mention the fact that just last night she had practically announced that their car was going to be attacked by a deer just before it happened, more so that the two girls in the front seats would end up with a few cuts and bruises. Something was strange with her, even today when she just left after seeing the two boys in the hallway.

Allison moved to go back to her work when there was a loud bang that coursed through the whole room, distracting people from their writing. Most people jumped in their seat, startled as the silence in the room was broken, but the hunter only frowned deeply in confusion, glancing towards the window to see that there was blood stains smeared on the window. A bird lay on the outside window steel after crashing directly into the glass, something that Allison found conflicting. Birds don't normally just decide they want to commit suicide by flying into a school's window. Deer don't run straight down the middle of the road and into a car.

None of this is normal; Beacon Hills isn't normal.

Sage, from beside Allison, was staring at the blood that was slowly dropping down. Maybe she was having PTSD, but even the sight of blood repulsed her after how much of it she's seen in her lifetime. From blood of her friends on her hands to her own blood, she found herself growing nauseous at just the sight of it because just seconds before the bird crashed into the window, she had started bleeding. Somehow, she didn't find that to be a coincidence.

What wasn't a coincidence either was when a whole flock of birds came, differing greatly from the singular one that died just seconds before, all fighting their way to be the second, third, and hundredth to hit the glass. Eventually, with such an impact on the windows, they crashed, shards scattering everywhere. That was when everyone got over their shock, finally complying to Ms. Blake's urgent screams to get down.

Sage and Allison both dropped to the floor, shoving aside Allison's desk which had created a barrier between them, and huddled together. The classroom was a sea of chaos as teenagers were clawed apart, screaming as even more blood showed up on the scene. Sage could already begin to feel scratches form on her arms and legs, which were completely exposed to the talons of the birds. She felt replications of Allison's, and she even felt replications of Lydia's and Stiles', who were trying their best to keep away from the dangers that the birds were creating. Then, everything went still.

Dead birds lay to the left, right, behind, and in front of everyone, feathers caught in hair. Allison slowly removed her hands from Sage's wrists, which she had instinctively grabbed when she was pulling her best friend closer to try and protect her, while Sage slowly moved her own hands from Allison's arms. They were literally a tangled mess, and from across the room, Stiles and Lydia looked no better. Lydia's hair was ruffled and frizzy, although every single person looked the exact same way, some in worse conditions than others.

Sage leaned on the side of the desk, grabbing a hold of her head to try and rid herself of the whiplash that she, no doubt, probably just got. She squeezed her eyes shut for a split second before opening them again, a pair of eyes meeting with her own green ones a second later. Stiles stared at her, and she silently glanced over him to make sure nothing was too bad. He acquired a few cuts here and there, but other than that, he looked stable. Well, stable enough after what happened.

The blonde could only send a small nod towards him, her throat closing up as she tried to forget the times where he would be the first one to make sure she was okay, and when she did the same. Falling apart, that was what was happening. Her relationship, this town, everything. Everything.

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"Sheriff, as much as I appreciate your concern, I promise that I don't need to go to the hospital. I'm pretty sure I would get kicked out anyways, Melissa's getting tired of seeing my face in the place. I practically lived there all last year." Sheriff Stilinski stood in front of her as she sat on one of the desks that managed to stay upright after the bird fiasco, frowning deeply while giving small glances towards the bandages on her forehead and arms. She was one of the more banged up, considering she got everyone's injuries, including the ones she sustained herself. Greenberg got the worst of all, and Sage wasn't even the slightest bit sincere about it. To be honest, she wouldn't give two shits if those birds stabbed his eyes out.

Sheriff, despite the tension happening between his son and the girl, felt his concern for Sage only grow, since she was like the daughter he never had. His son refused to even get looked at, making the father resort to the second best option, making sure at least one of the couple get looked at properly. "Sage, you have cuts all over yo—"

"Yeah," Sage interrupted, smiling sadly. "And, I got ripped apart by an animal at formal last year. This is nothing, Sheriff. I'm fine, seriously. Go talk to people that actually need assistance."

Sheriff Stilinski sighed but nodded his head, glancing around the room until he found Argent, who had showed up just a few minutes before after hearing what happened. Sage wasn't sure how she felt about Allison's dad, or anyone in the Argent family for that matter. Kate had burned her whole family alive, Victoria tried to kill Scott and her, Allison tried to kill Derek one too many times, and Argent practically vowed to chop Scott in half if he got anywhere near his daughter. That wasn't really an issue now, Sage supposed, considering what used to be the biggest love conflict since Romeo and Juliet was now over. They would eventually find their way back together. They always do.

"Hey," she heard a voice come up behind her, and glanced up to see that Stiles was standing in front of her. The blonde raised her eyebrows in question. His lips pulled down, and he moved his hand forward hesitantly, before reaching in Sage's hair and retrieving a black feather. In the time that he did this, he also pushed her remaining blonde hair behind her ear. This only left an immense amount of crushing pain in Sage's chest, feeling like someone just dropped two tons on it.

"Hey," Sage replied, her voice cracking slightly, hoarse as she visibly winced.

Stiles went to speak when his phone began ringing, and Sage finally understood the saying, 'saved by the bell,' because right now, she couldn't have felt more secure than knowing she had just escaped a grueling and awkward conversation between the boy she said she loved just five months ago. Now, though, she wasn't sure. The overwhelming fear she had of being left alone was enough to fog over her feelings towards her boyfriend.

The worst part was that it was just history repeating at this point.

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