A/N: Cadie's introduction to the Hale Pack part 2 of 2. And answers. Like a lot more than anyone wanted.

Chapter title taken from the same poem as the previous chapter.
Also, descriptions of violence and abuse. Not terribly graphic, but they are there just as a warning.
I've also taken the liberty of somewhat adding to the werewolf myth as it isn't fully described what Teen Wolf's werewolves are capable of. Most of what I added was filled in from the ridiculous amount of other werewolf stories I've read over the years.

They heard the two vehicles long before they saw them, though it was the cruiser that appeared first, pulling in besides Stiles jeep. The big dark SUV wasn't far behind and for Cadie it wasn't hard to guess who was in that. But it was her dad that got out first, followed by a dark haired woman, around his age, from the passenger side.

"Hey, kiddo," the sheriff murmured as he walked towards their group. "Hows it hanging?"

Cadie laughed a little and disentangled herself from Stiles and Isaac to curl herself into her dad's hug. He wrapped her up tight, easing some of the raw open nerve endings. "A lot better than I thought I'd be twenty-four hours ago," she answered honestly.

He rubbed her back, holding a little tighter. "Me too, kiddo. Me too." He held her for a while longer before letting go. "I got some one I'd like you to meet." He stepped to the side, but kept his hand on her shoulder. "This is Melissa McCall, Scott's mom."

Cadie tried to find a smile somewhere and uncrossed her arms to shake her hand. "Nice to meet you."

The older woman smiled kindly and Cadie saw where Scott got it from. "You too, honey. Your mom always said you were so pretty. You look just like her."

The tears that always seemed to be just under the surface, welled up again. "You knew my mom?"

She nodded, sympathy across her face. "We used to get together all the time because of Stiles and Scott. They've been inseparable since they were eight. I didn't know her that long, but yeah, we were friends."

Cadie crossed her arms again, like it would hold in everything. "And she would talk about me?"

"Oh, honey." Motherly concern and understanding all over her face, Melissa reached for her and hugged her close. "All the time. She always knew you were out there. She never gave up hope that some day you'd come home."

It was strange how it eased a lifelong ache in her soul and made her want to cry at the same time, tearing open wounds that had not had proper time to heal. Made her let this woman she did not know hold her and ease a little bit of her pain because she knew mom, her real mom. The mom that had loved her until the end, that had never given up hope that her lost daughter would return.

It seemed forever before she stepped away, rubbing her eyes in embarrassment. "I can't seem to stop crying lately."

"We'll revisit that statement in a week or two to see if still holds any validity," her dad said with a smile.

She laughed because his eyes were a little wet too. "Okay." Movement behind them caught her eye and she looked over, found a silver haired man her dad's age walking towards them. Instinctively, she stepped in front of them to face the stranger and knew who he was. "You must be the other Argent," she flared.

He stopped cold in his tracks, watching her warily. "You know who I am?"

"I know of your family, yes."

Behind her, she heard the others advancing from the porch, but it was Allison that came into view first. She stepped up to her dad's side, curling a hand around his arm.

"Hey, dad."

He looked down at her. "What's going on?"

She gave him a small half smile that was trying too hard. "It looks like Gerard and Kate attacked her old pack just before they came back here. In a really bad way."

The older man -Chris- nodded. Then he looked back at Cadie, surrounded now by the Hale pack. "I'm not my father, or my sister. The rest know that."

The old familiar rage bubbled under her skin. "Trust me, its the only thing keeping me over here."

He nodded like he knew and she did not want his understanding. She wanted Selena and the kids back. Her pack mates that had died for no reason at all. She snarled, at him, at his perfect daughter who had made no excuses for what she'd just learned.

"Cadie."

It wasn't only her dad that reached out and touched her. It was Derek as well. The combined fact of dad and alpha stilled her restless pain and she turned away. From an urge she hadn't felt since that night and the tension in the pack around her. From the scent of wolfsbane and mountain ash and grief and guilt.

"Stiles said you had to hear everything," she said dully to no one at all, staring at the ground, feeling the exhaustion come pooring back in.

Derek's hand had fallen away, but her dad's remained. "I'm sorry, kiddo, but yeah, we need to."

She nodded numbly.

"Is this gonna be a short story or can we eat first?" All eyes swiveled to the speaker, landing on one of the betas. Jackson. "What?! Derek called us all out here at ass o'clock in the morning. I haven't eaten."

"Dude, so much tact," Isaac muttered.

"I second the food option." Cora that spoke up, earning her a withering glare from Derek.

"Really, guys?" Scott looking exasperated. "You're thinking about food right now?"

Erica gave him a considering look. "Uh, yeah?"

"Alright, enough," the sheriff broke in. "I know how you are when it comes to your food. Which is why Mrs. McCall and I made a pit stop before coming out here."

Isaac perked up. "Burgers?" He asked hopefully.

Stiles gave him a look. "Really, dude? I thought you were, like, on our side here."

The curly haired boy shrugged. "Its free food."

"Traitor."

Mrs. McCall rolled her eyes. "Yeah, burgers. And curly fries. Stiles, supervise the food distribution while I check out your sister."

Stiles gave her a smart salute, but everyone else beat him to the cruiser and started handing out and arguing over bags. Cadie watched them, feeling the sting of loss, remembering the times when the rest of the pack was gone and Selena found the rest of them a meal. How the kids would crowd close, establishing their own hierarchy in their small band on who ate first and what. It had never been as carefree as the teenagers were before her and there had certainly been less food, but the similarities caught her, lodged in tight against her heart. This pack might be saving her, but she wondered when they'd kill her.

"Come on, honey. Lets go over here for a minute."

Melissa guided her back to the porch steps, her father following close behind. They sat down facing everyone else, Cadie noticing how the Argent's stood a small distance away to the side, only Scott and Lydia bridging the divide. Derek standing in the middle, watching everyone. She couldn't help but feel that with his back to her, it meant he was standing before her, protecting her. It was a disconcerting feeling to have for an alpha for her. They had always been a source of terror.

"I'm going to start off asking some questions, then I'm going to check your vitals. Is that okay?"

Cadie nodded, smiling when her dad took her hand. She answered the questions (are you in any pain? Physical? No. When was the last time you ate? This morning. French toast with too much syrup. Slept? Two days ago. A little last night.) After that she took her pulse, her blood pressure, shone a light in her eyes, in her mouth. When she was done, she packed everything back into her bag and set it by her feet.

"What's the verdict, doc?" Her dad, all fatherly concern.

The older woman smiled. "Besides being a bit dehydrated and malnourished, I'd say she's in perfect health."

"Werewolf. We kinda don't have problems." Cadie smiled.

Melissa squeezed her hand. "No harm in being sure."

She nodded her understanding then laughed as Stiles huffed into a seat behind her and plopped a white bag in her lap. "Eat up, sis, before the mongrels steal it."

She carefully dug through the bag as Scott handed his mom something yogurt-y and her dad took a giant bite of some sort of egg sandwich. She found a burger in her bag and though hungry (again. Dad had fed her and Stiles before they left), she plucked at the paper, feeling the urge to wrap it up again and save it for later. She might not be able to eat again for a while.

"You should eat that."

She looked up at Derek's voice, found his shadow over her. Beside her, her dad stilled his eating to look between them both. She looked down again. "I'm kinda... I feel as if, maybe, I should save it. For later. In case..." The admittance tumbling out in fumbled words.

He sank down into a crouch before her and dipped his head until he caught her eyes. "Its okay," he answered quietly. "That's over now. You're safe."

She smiled crookedly at him, his understanding. "You can't have something be a certain way for eighteen years then just accept it changing overnight."

He gave her a half smile, but it was genuine. "I know. Its hard. But trust me when I say you're safe and you need to eat. I need you strong. We're still a young pack. We can't have any weaknesses."

She nodded, taking a bite of her food to show her understanding and he wordlessly rose to lean on the railing of the steps, arms crossed. Around them, the others settled back onto the porch amid grumblings of "Derek, we need furniture, for reals" then silence as they consumed a ridiculous amount of food. It horrified Cadie to think of it, but she could well remember the times Andrew let them go into towns and purchase food. How much it had cost to feed a few just some scraps. For so much? It was more than she'd see in a whole year.

That's over now, she told herself. Its done. This pack is good. They wont hurt me because they can. Dad and Stiles trust them. Its okay. Its going to be okay. But the worry remained. No just because she did not know them enough to trust them, but that Andrew would find her and rip it all away.

When she was done eating, she carefully balled up the wrapper, but held it in her hands, crumpled between her fingers. "Do you want me to start at the beginning?" She asked quietly, looking at no one, feeling them still around her. "The night I was taken?"

"If you would."

She looked up at Chris' voice, found him leaning back against the hood of his SUV with arms crossed, Allison at his side, mimicking him. Her face twisted. "Before I begin I'd like to ask you something."

All emotion (what little had been there) dropped from his face. "About my sister or my father?"

She grimaced. "About Andrew. My old alpha." His shocked expression told her everything she needed to know. "Then it wasn't a lie. He'd been a hunter once."

"Come again?" There was the beginning of rage in her father's voice and something inside of her was vindicated.

"Talk about a plot twist," Jackson snickered.

"Jackson!" Lydia hissed.

"This is not going to end well," Stiles muttered under his breath.

"To answer your question, yes. He used to be one of us." Mr. Argent, all smooth voice and cool eyes.

"You mean he worked for your family." Derek, jaw tensed so the words sounded ground out.

The older man nodded. "One of my father's favorite pupils. Said he was like a son."

"Then he got bitten," Cadie observed.

"The he got bit," he echoed.

"Why didn't he kill himself?" Allison asked the question, quiet and too sad for some one she hadn't known.

Her father looked down at her with the same sadness. "He was supposed to. He was going to. But he told Gerard that he wanted to take out the alpha -some kid that had gotten lucky taking out an old timer and went wild when he couldn't form a pack. Said he wanted to do it because the alpha couldn't hurt him, not after being bitten. That he was the best man for it. I should have known it was a lie though. Andrew had never been selfless."

"So he didn't kill the alpha?" Scott asked, a weird note to his voice.

Chris directed his cool blue stare at him. "I didn't say that. We found the alpha the next day, cut in half. But Andrew was long gone by then."

"But, he's still a werewolf."

"Andrew said they can make a choice when they kill their maker." All eyes swiveled to her, but it was Derek's stare she met. "I never knew whether to believe him because he was insane, but he said when you kill your maker, if they're still an alpha, you can choose. To become human or to become an alpha."

"So he chose power," Chris breathed it like it was answer to an old question.

Cadie nodded, closing her eyes briefly against the memories.

"Did you know what he was?" The sheriff asked in the silence, his anger directed at the Argents'. "Did you know he became a monster?"

It was Mr. Argent that answered. "Yes. We hunted him, but he knew all our secrets, our tactics. He went to ground, for years. We got a lock on him shortly after I returned here. Kate and Gerard went to handle him."

"No offense, but we've kind of heard the awesome job they did," Isaac flared and Cadie wondered how much she hadn't heard of what had happened in the last few years.

"And I haven't. My father wasn't exactly the best narrator."

Cadie worried the wrapper still in her hands, not looking at anyone.

Melissa noticed and put a comforting hand over hers. "When you're ready."

Cadie smiled gratefully at her. "I never will be, but they need to know as soon as possible. To prepare in case Andrew decides to look for me if he isn't already."

The older woman nodded in understanding. "We're all here for you. Even them." She looked at the Argents' with something close to a challenge in her stare.

Cadie snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Give them a chance." Scott, gentle but firm. God help the world if he ever decided to take over. Half would be done in by those brown eyes and the other half would be done in by thinking those brown eyes were harmless.

She glared at him. "I am. I'm sorry, but this is the best I have right now, okay?"

Her dad patted her knee. "Down, kiddo. They're not the enemy. No one here is. But there is one out there and I -we- need to know everything you can tell us."

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay." She placed the wrapper she'd been clutching on the porch step and curled her hand around her dad's and held tight to Mrs. McCall. "Grandpa and I were on our way back from Denver. We left in the night to beat a storm I think."

"Yeah, he called before you left." Her dad quiet in his remembering.

"Why were you with grandpa in the first place?" Stiles interrupted.

Cadie looked back at him and realized she didn't have an answer so they both looked back at the sheriff.

"You'd just been born." He directed his response to Stiles. "I'd just gotten promoted which just meant they had me pulling more shifts. We had to move out of the house for a few weeks because some faulty wiring started a fire in the kitchen. The holidays were coming. Cadie was getting lost in the shuffle. Claudia and I just didn't have time." He smiled sadly at her. "She was concerned you weren't getting enough attention and my dad offered a solution. He lived so far and was worried that he wouldn't get to know his grandchildren, so he offered to take Cadie for a week or two while we got resettled into the house and he got to have some bonding time. They'd be back in time for Christmas. That was the plan. Instead..."

Cadie held tighter to him. "Instead we hit something in the mountains, going through a pass or something. It must have been in the middle of the night. I don't remember. I was sleeping. I think the impact woke me." She closed her eyes. You're not a little girl anymore. You're not there anymore. She opened them again. "I remember grandpa telling me to stay in the car. He left it running. It was an old truck, a pickup, I think." Her dad nodded. "The rumble it made hid the sounds at first. But then it didn't."

"Sounds?" Stiles, asking like he was afraid of the answer.

She let go of her dad's and Melissa's hands to hug her chest. "Screams. I don't remember what he was saying. Just screaming like he was being torn apart. He was, I found out later. But I didn't know then. It just scared me so I crawled onto the floor boards with this old knitted blanket he always had across the seat. I covered myself up in it, trying to hide. I knew there was some sort of monster out there, doing that to him. It had to be bad because he was so big and strong. I wanted to be too, but he'd told me to stay in the car." She fell quiet, trying to will the memories into numbness. They were over. She had survived.

"Then what?" Derek searching her face when she met his gaze. For what, she didn't know.

"He ripped the door right off the truck," she answered quietly.

"Andrew?" Argent this time, leaning forward in his interest.

She nodded. "I peeked out when he did, wondering what the noise was, hoping it was grandpa. Instead it was a monster." She rubbed her face on the back of her sleeve. "His face was transformed more than I've ever seen since and with the red eyes and the blood everywhere, he was terrifying. He reached in and he pulled me out and I screamed and kicked and he tossed me on the ground. It hurt. A lot. Then he came at me and I knew. I knew he was going to kill me. I think I started screaming. For you, dad. And mom."

"Christ, Cadie." Her dad's eyes were wet and rage simmered under his skin, trembling in his hands as he clasped them together, holding it in.

She wanted to comfort him, hug him and tell him it wasn't his fault, but she felt disconnected from her body. She had no control over it, keeping herself from the terror of her own memories. "He'd almost reached me when suddenly there was a woman there. She was older than mom, but not old. She threw herself on top of me and begged Andrew not to hurt me, to keep me. Make me one of them. I didn't understand it all at the time. Just that she was trying to protect me. She smelt like the pines." She lost herself in the memory, in the remembrance of Selena's scent, how it had always comforted her, let her know she was loved in her darkest days. It had covered her always, like her grandpa's old blanket, warm and familiar.

"Did the alpha listen?"

Her dad's voice broke her from her revery and she sniffled, wiping at her eyes with the heels of her palms. "Yes and no. He threw her off me and I remember him saying something about if I survived the Bite, she could have me. Then he bit me."

"Right there?" She couldn't understand the emotions in her dad's and Stiles' strangled voices, only there were many and overlapping.

"When you were six?" The older Argent, incredulous.

"And you survived." Derek didn't frame it like a question. It was a quiet statement, approving her survival.

"Do we know of anyone being bitten that young?" Cora asked in the brief silence. "And surviving," she added when her brother and the Argent's flicked looks at each other.

"I haven't heard of anyone," Derek admitted, like it pained him he didn't have knowledge of something.

"Neither have I," Chris allowed with a grimace. "Are you sure this was the same Andrew I knew?"

Cadie glared at him. "Andrew Wilson? Had some shitty tattoo of a cross on the inside of his left forearm with the oh so original 'spiritus sanctus' written in it in the worst calligraphy I have ever seen?"

The older man's mouth twitched. "Sounds like one and the same then."

"You think?"

"What happened next? Other than you not dying, obviously." It was Erica that asked, like everything hadn't been Cadie's personal hell and instead some B rate horror movie review.

She huffed. "I nearly died and then I didn't because mom took care of me."

"'Mom'?" Her dad's voice was choked up and beaten up and she felt instantly guilty.

"Selena," she answered quietly. "The woman who saved me."

The sheriff took her hands in his. "Honey, she wasn't your mom."

Angry, at herself, at her dad, she pulled away and stood, facing the porch full of people watching her. "I know that, okay? But I was six years old when I was taken. Six. I was alone and was going to die. Then this woman saves me, okay? She saves me. She challenges her alpha to protect this girl she doesn't know all because she heard me crying for my mom and dad. And I know it only mattered to her because she'd just lost her own daughter who was my age, alright? I know that. But that didn't stop her from loving me for me. From protecting me every time I screwed up which was fucking constant because I was an omega because of the family I could barely remember." She was crying and furious she swiped at the tears on her face. "My memories of here are what kept me human, but they caused every bit of pain I felt. And you know what she did when she realized I wouldn't eat people? She refused to too and Andrew hurt her just as much as he hurt me and made her an omega too. And then brutalized any of the pack that tried to help us because we had to get our own food, make our own shelters. If we wouldn't be like them then we had to fend for ourselves, but he wouldn't let us leave either. Oh no, we had to endure his shit or die and she was there for me. Every. Fucking. Moment. Until she was killed. She was there, doing her best to protect me." Her chest was heaving with ragged breaths, gathering air into her lungs, struggling to hold back the rage, the pain, the wasted life. "So yeah, I call her mom because that's what she was to me for sixteen years. It doesn't mean I don't remember my real mom. Doesn't mean I love her any less, but I'm not going to ignore what Selena did for me either."

Her dad looked stricken and that hurt. She hadn't meant to lash out, to tell him all that. It didn't serve any good at all, but he and Stiles wanted her to deny the one person she had loved, that had saved her life and cared for her and she couldn't. She just couldn't.

"Honey..." Her dad sounded broken and that was her fault. She'd done that to him. Maybe despite all her denials, Andrew was right. She was a monster.

"Daddy, I'm sorry," she whispered, hugging herself. Taking a step back when all she wanted to do was run forward and hug him and pray he wouldn't push her away. "I never meant to hurt you with all that, but I can't deny Selena. Not after everything."

He stood and took back the steps she'd taken, curling his hands around her arms. "No, Cadie. Look at me." She did, haltingly, not wanting to see his face, his disappointment, but all that was there was sincere fatherly pride. "You're absolutely right, kiddo. What that woman -Selena- did is what a mother would do. What Claudia would have done if she had been there. And I wish I could meet this Selena and thank her."

She couldn't stop the surprise from showing on her face and felt a bit of icy terror melt away from her heart. Her dad smiled, like he knew.

"She took care of you when we couldn't, when we didn't even know what had happened to you. What was happening to you and I will hate that bastard for the rest of my life for what he's done, but I'm glad you had some one there, watching over you and keeping you the same beautiful, head strong, little girl that I remember." He caught her when she sobbed and sagged forward into his arms and wrapped her up tight, crushing her almost and it was more than okay. "But I'm not going to lie, kiddo. It hurts a little when you call another woman 'mom'. Makes me angry all over again. Not at you, but that bastard for taking you away. For not letting us have you like we were supposed to. For not letting Claudia see you grow. And its going to take a while for that to go away, okay, kiddo?"

She nodded against his chest, too busy crying to form words, because she could understand that. She kind of felt the same way.

"Okay," he whispered into her hair. "Okay. We're going to be okay."

She laughed then pulled away to wipe her face. "Its like our family motto now."

The sheriff mustered up a smile for her that was a little too wet and sad, but still there. But it was Stiles that answered. Still sitting on the porch.

"Nah, the Stilinski Hug is definitely the family motto. The words are more of a verbal interpretation for people who don't understand the the physical essence of the Hug." His voice sounded scratched up with too much emotion, but still with that joking edge to it.

Cadie laughed, rubbing at her face to get rid of the last of the tears. "Yeah."

"That hug does have magical properties to it." All eyes swiveled to Lydia. "What?"

"When were you hugging Mr. Stilinksi?" Jackson, all confused jealousy.

She rolled her eyes at him. "When I thought you died that first time before I knew about all these... supernatural... things."

Cadie blinked, trying to comprehend that statement. "Okay, this is not the first time I have heard statements along the lines of dying more than once. What has been going on with you people? Do I need to be concerned?"

"Yes." It was Chris that answered. "Definitely because people have died here and then risen from their graves in various different manners, but its not just that. Beacon Hills is, well, a beacon for the supernatural. Its like a flame in the dark and everything from your nightmares finds its way here."

She stared at him. "Awesome," she finally breathed. She wanted to make some snarky not at all true comeback about how maybe Andrew's pack was a little less dangerous, but it felt too soon.

"Yeah, the last few years have been... fun," Scott put in.

She huffed. "Sounds like." She rubbed at her eyes, exhausted and there was still so much to go through. Tiredly she went back to her seat on the porch, smiling up at Stiles when he squeezed her shoulder, her dad following close behind. Some one else pressed in close from the side; her mouth twitching as Isaac's scent got clearer. "I guess I should finish," she began quietly. The others made various noises of agreement and she sighed. "We moved around a lot, but stayed mostly in the Rockies and never lived amongst humans. Like, we lived in the wilderness. We stayed in a lot of hunting and vacation cabins in the winter. Summer though, it was always out in the wild. We never stayed in one place more than a few months. Sometimes we'd backtrack to a place we hadn't been in for a year or two."

"Because of the people they killed." Argent, still smooth and cool and matter of fact. She supposed one would be if they were a hunter.

She nodded. "Said that if we stuck around in one place, the hunters would catch us and then we would be dead."

"Did anyone ever challenge him?" Again, Argent. Gathering information.

Again she nodded. "They all died. He was strong. Selena said he was stronger than her old alpha and he'd been powerful. And he was ruthless. He broke us down until the thought of challenging him was too terrifying. No one was immune to his brutality. Well, Bree was, but she was his mate."

"Bree?"

"Yeah, I never understood how she could be with him because she wasn't like him. Yeah, she participated in the hunts and stuff, but it was only like it was because of him. Like she did it all because he did it. And she'd try and stop him, you know? When he was just flying off the handle she'd try and calm him down, but never in a challenging way. Just more of a 'hey, cool down'. And if he didn't want too she didn't push it."

"You think she was his anchor?" It was Allison that asked, directing the question at Derek.

Cadie answered. "No, she came after me. I don't exactly remember how or when, just that it was after I did. I think... I think Selena was his mate or something before Bree."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because her little girl? The one that died? She was Andrew's. He bit her when she was six -like me- and it didn't take."

"He killed his own daughter?" Her father sounding horrified.

She caught his gaze. "Yeah. And she wasn't the last."

"How many were there?"

"All of them."

"What?"

She sighed, rubbing at her face. "All the kids that were born into the pack were his." She looked up at their shocked silence. "Yeah. He wouldn't let anyone else... breed for the lack of a better word, unless they had his say so. He'd give the women out like prizes to his favorite betas, but only after they were pregnant by him. When the kids were eight or so usually, and weren't born wolves, he bit them."

"How many survived?" The sheriff, quiet, curling his hand around one of hers.

"Only a few. He didn't care. He only wanted the kids to add to his power. If they couldn't become wolves and keep up with the rest of the pack, he believed they didn't deserve to live. That they were just a burden."

"Oh my god, Cadie..."

She shrugged. "It was the way it was, okay? Its just what we all knew."

"You said he passed around the women, that only he was allowed to... to..." She saw where her dad was headed with that and shook her head.

"He tried when I turned sixteen, but Selena wouldn't let him and even Bree told him to leave me alone. And there was nothing he could do because I said no even when he hurt me."

"He didn't... he didn't... you know... Force you?"

"Werewolves can't," Derek stated calmly.

The sheriff swiveled his eyes up to him. "What?"

"We can't force... that. If there is no consent given its nearly impossible for us to force ourselves on anyone. There has been a few cases in history, but its beyond rare. It... violates nature. Animals don't do that."

"But Cadie said he tried to beat her into it." Again that rage bubbled beneath the surface.

"Yes is yes, no matter how its given. Its a loophole, more to do with the human part than the animal. Wolves don't attack a female that wont mate with them."

"Jesus Christ," her dad breathed out.

Cadie tightened her hold on his hand. "Its okay, dad."

"No, kiddo. It is far, far from okay."

He was right, she knew, but there was nothing she could do about it.

"Why didn't he kill Selena?" It was Cora that asked, mimicking her brother's stance at the top of the porch. She found the similarities in them there. The dark clothing and the closed off stance. "If she defied him so much, why not get rid of her?"

"I never really knew," she answered honestly. "Like I said, I think she was his mate or something close to that in the beginning. She was one of the first members of his pack. He had some sort of... affection for her. I mean, he hurt her sometimes more than anyone else, but he never tried to kill her. He never tried to save her either, but considering the amount of betas that died by his personal hand... Selena and I should have been a corpse left rotting a long time ago."

"Honey, that's not comforting."

She squeezed her dad's hand, hating she had to tell him all of this. She'd gladly keep it all inside if she could. If it wouldn't hurt them by hiding it. "I know, but you need to know. What he is, what he's capable of."

"Yeah." He answered her like he knew all of what she said was true, but it didn't hurt any less.

She watched him for a moment, his hung head in profile and not for the last time, wished she'd had the sense to stay away. Surely the not knowing was better than this. Finally though, she turned away, spoke to the ground when she resumed. "It went like that up until a couple of years ago. That's when the Argent's showed up." She looked up at Chris when she retold the story of that night. Didn't miss the way Allison curled her fingers around her dad's hand, mimicking Cadie's grip on the sheriff. Her dad swore and at the mention of what had happened to the children, the older Argent looked away and his remorse and his shame were palpable. She hated that another's pain eased hers, but the fact that it affected him, a hunter, just as much if in different ways, made a difference.

She included some details that she'd forgotten in the first telling. How Kate had mentioned a brother she had needed to help with another rogue alpha and a niece she thought needed to know the trade. How Cadie caught her scent on Selena's body when she'd dragged herself to her body and those of the children when the hunters had left. Left them hanging there as a message to Andrew, that they were coming for him. How that's where the rest of the pack found her, with the bodies she had cut down laying around her as she cradled Selena's mangled remains. She left out how Andrew brutalized her, blamed her for their deaths, for not protecting them. How she'd screamed at him that she hoped the Argents' found him because he fucking deserved to die. It would serve no one for her to spill that nightmare. They already knew he was a monster.

"What happened? Afterwards?" Derek, calm but questing.

Cadie had her hands gripped between her knees, putting pressure to hold everything at bay. "He got crazier, meaner. All the kids were dead so we moved faster, more often, more people died. Nothing could stop him, you know? Then a year ago one of the betas, Paul got caught by hunters. Gerard's scent was all over him. Andrew was... enraged. Beyond that. Decided to strike back."

"How?" Derek asked the question, but she could see how Chris was all ears. This was the most pertinent information they could have.

"We laid a trap. Some of the betas attacked a couple that was camping. Let the woman get away with obvious signs that it was a werewolf that had done it for ones that knew to look. Left the guy all mangled up at the sight. The hunters showed. Made their presence known real quick. Caught one of the new betas and tortured him to death. It took all night."

"You knew what was happening?" Erica, horrified, and there was a story there as she clung to Boyd and Cora leaned into them both.

Cadie nodded. "Yeah, we were close by. Andrew watched the whole thing."

"Why?" Chris now, probing for answers and motives.

"Mainly because Finn had pissed him off. The rest was because it was part of the plan."

"Andrew sacrificed him?"

"Yeah. Because after that we split up into two groups -like we were scared and the pack was disintergrating- and made it known to the hunters tracking us. They fragmented their forces, but it also divided up our strength. Without Andrew we were weak."

"What happened then?"

"Gerard led the party that followed Bree's group. It was sheer luck that I ended up with Andrew otherwise I'd be dead. I think Gerard thought he was on Andrew's trail or maybe he knew exactly who he was following and hoped to use her against him. Either way, Andrew and the betas obliterated the hunters that followed us and then we tracked down Bree's group. There wasn't much left by the time we reached them."

"What do you mean? They were all dead?" Again, the older Argent, trying to make sense of her words.

"Most of them. Bree was still alive and a couple others, but barely and she didn't make it through. We found them at night and the rest of the pack fell on them. It was weird though, because they never tried to kill Andrew. They tried tranking him, it looked like and they even tried to collar him. The others they used bullets on, but not him. But he got out of it every time and pretty soon there weren't very many hunters left. The old man called a retreat and that was the last we saw of them."

"What?" Melissa now that asked the question.

"That was it. We never saw the hunters again. Andrew thought it was because he scared Gerard, but I was never sure of it."

"And you were right." She looked up at Chris when he spoke, but it was Allison that finished the statement.

"He found an alpha that was easier for him to get a hold of."

"I don't understand."

The older Argent took back the explanation. "My father was dying we found out. Apparently, he came to the conclusion he'd rather be a werewolf and alive than human and dying in a hospital bed coughing out his life."

Her eyes widened. "He was trying to catch Andrew so he could get bitten?"

"Yeah."

Her eyes swiveled around the mass of people around her, finally landing on Derek and his downcast eyes. "He came after you."

Her new alpha met her gaze. "Yes. If not for Scott, Gerard would be a werewolf, probably an alpha after he killed me."

"You said he's dead, right? And Kate?"

"Yes."

She let out a shaky breath. "Okay. Okay."

"Cadie?" She looked up at her name into those ice cool eyes of Chris Argent. "How'd you escape? And why after all those years?"

"I'd like to know the answer to that too, kiddo."

She tried a smile for her dad, but it was small and faded quickly. "After what happened with Bree, there was nothing holding Andrew back and with him wild, the others got worse. It... got to be too much. So when I got sent out on a run alone, I just took off. I don't know what possessed me. I just knew that if I stayed, I was going to die and trying to get away seemed a better way to go than just staying and waiting for it." It still made her tremble to think of it. It was only a couple of weeks ago after all. "I stole some money from some lady in a coffee shop and bought a bus ticket for whatever was leaving at that moment. I got off at every bus for the next three stops, buying tickets going in a different direction from the one I had just come from. I did that all the way down to Phoenix then made my way to Las Vegas and then LA. I didn't really have any idea where I was going, just away. Maybe Idaho. I knew two other omegas of a different pack we'd met once. Thought maybe I could find them and... I don't even know. And then the next thing I know is I'm standing outside the house. And then I'm inside and you find me, dad."

The sheriff pulled her into his arms and she tucked her head under his chin and held on. Pressed her ear to the steady bump of his heart, the even rise and fall of his lungs. Closed her eyes as he stroked her hair and tried to let herself believe. That she was safe, that it was over for now. That there was a pack around her that wouldn't hurt her. That the Argents' before her weren't the monsters of her nightmares. They were only half truths, though. Andrew and the rest of the pack were out there and he'd search for her (was). Not because she mattered, but because she dared to defy him. She was something he couldn't have in his manic world and needed to be taken care of. His obsession for control would drive him after her, to the ends of the Earth and the destruction of his pack if need be. She just hoped that happened before he found her. Before he ripped all this away and made it something ugly. Something she'd regret with her last dying breath.

Chris Argent asked her a few more questions about Andrew's pack. Where they'd been when she took off, the places they had frequented, any contacts they may have had. She answered what she could, hoping that her information would lead to Argent finding Andrew and taking him out before he found Beacon Hills. Before he found what she loved and ripped it to shreds. It felt weird though, giving out all his secrets. Like betrayal. He'd been her maker and her alpha for nearly twenty years. That had been her pack no matter what they had done to her. She'd felt it when each one died and sometimes it felt like she had no body because all the pieces had been ripped away one by one. But as her dad helps her stand to guide her to Stiles' jeep so they can go to the station, the members of the Hale pack all find an opportunity to touch her. Cora brushing her shoulder with hers as she steps by her. Jackson's fingers curling against hers for a breath and Lydia pulling something from the hoodie she wore. Scott hugging her before he goes to Allison. Erica fixing her messy bun and Boyd patting her shoulder. Isaac standing with his hands in his pockets, looking unsure until she bumps him playfully. He laughs a little and bumps back and then Derek is walking by to follow his sister into the house, his hand cupping the back of her neck as he passes, heat shimmering down her spine in the wake of that. And it feels like maybe she's finding those missing pieces, gathering them back to herself to put herself back together again. Better this time, perhaps without the ragged edges of abuse. How she was meant to be, before Andrew tried so hard to destroy her.

At the station, she tells a story of a bear attack after her grandpa got a flat tire. Of wandering alone for two days until a recluse found her and raised her. How she'd only come looking for her real family when her surrogate mother died and she found her grandpa's old IDs stashed away and put the pieces together enough to find Beacon Hills. (Argent is already fabricating evidence to support the story if anyone should go digging that deep.) They take her fingerprints, her picture and lastly her and her dad's DNA to prove that she is who she says she is. (She had worried about that last, but again Argent had intervened and told them unless they were looking for anomalies, everything should be fine with a simple DNA scan.)

Finally they let her go and her dad takes the next two days off and then they're home. They all end up on the couch, her in the middle bracketed by dad and Stiles and she lets herself fall asleep to the sound of the TV. To the scent of her family wrapped tight around her and their voices filling her ears, blocking out the screams of her memories.

Peace