There was a woman at the Argents' door. Peter maximized the window to have a better look at her.

She'd rung the doorbell and was now standing there, impatiently tapping her foot. When nobody answered, she rang again, longer this time. When after a few moments the door still stayed close, she stepped back to have a look at the front of the house as a whole and then went around one side to check there as well. She came back to the front a few seconds later, now with her phone at her ear. She was speaking to somebody but Peter didn't have audio so he could only guess that she was on the phone with one of the Argents. She stood on the sidewalk, gesturing wildly while she spoke to whoever was on the other end of the line. She ended the call, had another look up and down the street before she got in the car and drove off.

Peter wrote down the license plate before he went back to find a good shot of her face.

With the license plate, it didn't take long to put a name to that face.

Kate Argent.

When that name came up on the screen Peter sat back in his chair. He'd heard that name before.

One Google search later he knew where he'd heard it before. He'd dismissed her earlier because Stiles had said that the hunter at the mall had been talking about a man named Argent and Chris as an arms dealer seemed to be the right guy. He probably still was. So Peter hadn't looked into the substitute English teacher. Who turned out to be Chris' sister. And as that she most likely was a hunter as well.

She was teaching Cora's grade.

Peter did not want the whole pack to know about this so he didn't bellow for Talia but they needed to talk. Now.

He found her in the kitchen with Christina and Deborah. Talia was in the middle of telling a story about baby Laura but Peter didn't have time for this.

"Excuse me, ladies." He swept in. "I need to borrow my big sister real quick."

Of course, she wanted to know what this was about but she did let him lead her outside and out into the woods. This was nothing he wanted to discuss in a house full of people.

Once he was sure that nobody would be able to listen in to them, Peter stopped in his tracks.

"Peter, what's going on?" Talia asked. "What's so important that it can't wait until tonight?" Which would be their usual time for conversations between alpha and left hand.

"We have a hunter problem," Peter admitted.

He told her about the two hunters who may or may not be planning on capturing and most likely torturing a werewolf and the Argent siblings with the sister already well established as a teacher at the local high school.

At the last part, Talia went pale.

"Teacher?" She repeated. "Which grade?" Because there were only two grades she cared about. Boyd, Erica, and Issac went together and Cora a year behind them.

"Cora's," Peter confirmed. "She's been at the school for weeks. I should have noticed earlier, I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." She was quick to assure him but it was his fault. It was his job to keep them safe and he hadn't noticed such a threat so close to one of the most vulnerable members of the pack.

Cora was sixteen. She was a teenager and so far the adults, mainly Peter, had managed to keep the harsh reality from her. But there were hunters out there. Most went after omegas who'd gone off the rails. The Hales were a stable pack, they were well established in the community, they should be safe. Should. Peter let out a bitter laugh.

"What now?" Talia pulled him out of his thoughts.

"I have eyes on Chris but I'm going to tighten the net around him," Peter said. In his mind, he was already pondering which strings to pull and which favors to call in. "Kate's name came up half an hour ago but I'm going to have a good look at her. And I need to find those other hunters but I might get lucky when I observe Kate. I doubt that we're having such an influx of hunters without them working together."

Talia nodded along but she had a distant look on her face, thinking.

"I'm a member of the town council and the church," she finally said. "I should welcome new citizens in our community, don't you think?"

"What do you have in mind?" Peter dared to ask. A direct approach was risky, they would let the Argents know that they knew about them. On the other hand, it might be a good chance to get some information.

"I'm going to bake a cake and tomorrow you and I are going over for a little welcome visit," Talia decided. "We can at least get to Chris and his wife that way, Kate's been here too long for that to look plausible and two visits like this would be too obvious." She had her thumb between her lips again, nibbling at her nail.

"I could talk to her in a teacher-parent meeting," she pondered but she clearly didn't like the idea.

"Let's check out Chris first," Peter said.

If Peter was honest, Kate looked as if she was on an undercover mission and he didn't think that blowing her cover at this moment was a good idea. Better find out more about her plans before they confronted her. She'd been teaching at the school for weeks now without causing any ripples. What was her plan? What did she hope to gain with this?

"You should ask Cora about her new teacher," Peter suggested. "Nothing too direct just if she likes her or if her regular teacher is better, things like that. Don't spook her."

"And I'm just going to let her go back to school on Monday as if nothing is going on?" Talia slung her arms around her middle as if she was feeling cold all of a sudden. "I can't just …"

Peter understood, he didn't like it either. The others, Boyd, Erica, and Isaac had classes together, they could watch out for each other but Cora was alone.

"I might have an idea but I have to talk to Stiles first." It was a terrible idea but it was the only thing Peter could think of at the moment. "And the sheriff, we'll need his help with this."

Getting Stiles on board would be the easy part, Peter was not so sure about John. They had gotten along quite well and the sheriff was way more open-minded than Peter would have ever guessed but he had no idea how John would react to his idea.

"Hmm?" Talia gave him a questioning look.

"Let's focus on Chris for now." Peter dismissed her, he needed to think about his idea for a little while longer. If they did this, they had to do it right, it would be pointless if Kate immediately knew what was up.

They discussed the situation for a little while longer, Talia wanted to know every little information he'd gathered about the hunters, but in the end, they had to agree that there wasn't much they could do for now.

When they came back into the house, Talia went to figure out which cake she wanted to bake while Peter went back upstairs.

He texted Stiles but the checkmark of his earlier message still hadn't turned blue so he didn't expect an answer anytime soon. It had been a stressful day for Stiles and he might stay under for a little while longer. Peter didn't exactly know how it worked but according to Stiles being under felt nice and he was prone to forget the time while he was down there.

However, if Peter hadn't heard from him by tomorrow, he would drive out to the lake to check on him. He was not worried, not really, but the idea of meeting Talia had driven Stiles into a panic attack, Peter would feel better once he knew that Stiles was okay.

Not that he had an idea what he would do if Stiles wasn't in his cabin. Should he call out for him? Or for Derek? At least the lake was remote enough that there would be nobody to witness him yelling over the lake.

He couldn't do anything about that now so Peter put the phone aside to check if something had happened at the Argents' house in the meantime. Victoria had come home with groceries but neither Chris nor his sister was back yet.

Peter used the rest of the day to make a few calls and see a few people, something he probably should have done earlier but without Kate in the mix, things hadn't looked too bad. But now there was a hunter teaching English to one of the kids in his pack.

While he was out in town, Peter checked out Kate's address as well. She was living in an apartment complex, nothing special but for sure not a place where hunters would bring, for example, a captured werewolf. On the other hand, it was not upscale enough for the neighbors to bat an eye at unfamiliar faces in the house.

Peter didn't go in to test the theory but since he knew that Kate had a set schedule, he would come back on Monday to have a closer look at her apartment. For now, he just made sure that he knew which windows belonged to her place and to get a feeling for the surroundings.

Stiles still hadn't even read his messages by Sunday morning. Peter wrote him that he would come out to the lake after this thing he had to do first and that Stiles better be there. Peter was getting an uneasy feeling here, Stiles hadn't been incommunicado for this long before, but that had to wait because of said other thing. Which was Talia's welcome visit at the Argents. So Peter put on some nice clothes, grabbed a bottle of wine, and then he drove them over to the Argents.

Victoria's face when she opened the door was priceless. However, that answered the question if she knew about her husband's real profession.

She caught herself quickly, though, and even brought out an almost polite: "Can I help you?"

Talia put on her best smile, the one she used for benefit events when she was trying to get people to write a bigger check than intended, and cheerfully introduced them as the welcome party.

"Who is it?" Chris came up behind his wife and Peter had to give him kudos for keeping his features open and relaxed even when his heart stumbled over a beat or two.

The next hour was the most surreal Peter had ever experienced.

Remembering her manners, Victoria had asked them to come in. Apparently, the cake looked so delicious that they had to have some right away. Or it was a test in case they had poisoned it. Either way, here Peter was, eating cake with the Argents.

They were sitting around the table, making polite small talk while at the same time everybody was digging for information. It was a tense dance which was right up Peter's alley. And Chris' as well, it looked like. It was kind of fun, actually.

Victoria had been eyeing the bottle of wine Peter had brought as if she really wanted to open that as well but since as werewolves Peter and Talia wouldn't be affected by the alcohol, she'd decided against it. But her eyes kept flickering over to the bottle, somebody needed a drink. Badly.

They had covered how the Argents liked Beacon Hills and if they had settled in yet, their daughter Allison had come up but she was staying with her grandfather in France at the moment.

"Sixteen you say? Just like my Cora." Talia gave Victoria another of her winning smiles which the other woman answered with a sour look. "They grow up so fast. Cora's already looking into where she wants to go to college. She alters between following Laura, her sister, and going somewhere completely different." Talia shook her head, amused over her little one. Neither Chris nor Victoria seemed to see anything amusing in the changing moods of a teenager.

"So, Chris," Peter filled the following silence. "What are you doing for a living?"