"If I'm going to protect you, I need to know everything." Clary told them. When she came back Loomis, Vanessa, and Aaron all looked relieved. They all hugged her and wanted to make her something to eat but Clary knew that they had to get down to business. She was not in the mood to pretend that everything was okay. Clary was going to control this meeting. She told everyone to follow her into the living room and they obeyed.

"She's right," Loomis sighed. She had sobered them up.

"Where should we start?" Vanessa asked, devastatingly. You could tell that her past was filled with skeletons.

"At the beginning. That's where you have to start or else this won't work. Each of you tell your own story." Clary demanded.

"I'll start," Aaron said. He had been quiet ever since they'd started, staring at his shoes.

Now Clary would get the information she needed.

Aaron

"I lived in Alicante with my mother. She was a single parent. She owned a dress shop on Main Street. She never told my father that she was pregnant with me.

On my seventeenth birthday I went looking for him. My mom tried to stop me but I snuck out anyways. I thought I knew where he was but I didn't. My father was Hodge."

Clary gasped loudly but Aaron continued on.

"Where I thought my father would be was a warlock. I was stupid enough to ask him about Hodge. The subject of the circle or anyone in it made him vicious. He put a paralyzing spell on me and then stuck my head in a cauldron. In it was a truth seeing serum. I saw the circle and what they did. I followed Hodge through the uprising and saw him kill my mother's parents. I saw him kill downworlders and rape women. My mother was one of those women. I saw what he did to her. I am a bastard child. I saw what the whole circle did. I saw Valentine and the Lightwoods, Wayland, and the Herondales. For a few minutes I knew them. I personally knew them because for a few minutes I was in Hodge's head. I was in the mind of a sociopath who wanted to kill all downworlders and anyone who got in his way. I was horrified. I was in his mind while he stabbed innocent werewolf kids in their hearts and decapitated vampires.

"When I couldn't take it anymore, the warlock let me come out of the cauldron. ' This is the man who you seek,' He told me. I ran, faster than I ever had before, out of that house. I ran until I couldn't run any more. I hated myself. I despised my father who I had never met before. I was a product of rape and my mother still loved me. She cared about all creatures. I hated everyone in the circle too. I came across a little abandoned house and that's where I stayed. I swore to myself that if I ever met a member of the circle I would kill them."

"And then you show up, Clary. I wanted to kill you so bad." He looked up and gave Clary a piercing look through his tear filled eyes. "But Loomis and Vanessa wouldn't let me and then you saved my life. I don't know what to think of you. You're Jocelyn and Valentine's daughter. I saw him murder dozens of people and he never looked back."

"Did my mother kill anyone?" Was the only thing Clary could ask.

"Excuse me?" Aaron asked, snapping out of his flashback.

"My mother, Jocelyn, is she a murderer?"

"She ran away during the uprising. I didn't see her."

"Okay," Clary said. Thinking about her own past and her parents past, if you could even consider Valentine a parent. She was lost in her own imagination when Loomis spoke up.

"I guess I'll go next," He said soberly.

Loomis

"My story is just like a lot of Werewolves. I got bit and my human parents realized it. They brought a priest over to our house and he did an exorcism but it wasn't necessary. It didn't work. I acted like it did though. I tried to hide it from my parents but one night they found me and they tried to kill me. My father had a shovel and he whacked me in the head with it. Then my mom came around and sliced a long gash down my arm with a knife. I whimpered in my wolf form. I knew it was them trying to kill me. I wiggled my way out of their grip and ran away. As I ran down the street I heard my dad yell 'Never come back!' I ran for hours. When I got to the place where the beach used to be there was a forest. It seemed magical and I went through it. I walked a few days through the beautiful forest. I found a pack of werewolves then. The pack leader took me in when I told him my story. Milos and his wife Lucy took me in. I lived with them for a little over two years. I was fourteen when my parents disowned me.

I was happy. I had a family who loved me and I had friends. My only weakness was that I trusted everyone. I was warned several times never to take someone to our pack. I was told that if a shadowhunter or any other downworlder species was brought to the pack then I would be banished or maybe even killed. They knew I had already been banished from one family already and I never wanted it to happen again.

One day though a horrible sickness reached our pack. People were coughing and had fevers and hallucinations. I knew that we had to trust someone if we didn't want our entire pack to die so I set out and found a witch. She was nice and I trusted her. She told me that she could do a spell that would cure everyone of the sickness. I agreed to it and showed her to the pack. When we got there, my whole pack stared at me like I was a stranger. I came to Milos and the first words out his mouth when I saw him were 'What did you do?' He gazed at me with horror. Lucy wouldn't even look at me.

The witch did her spell and cured them all. She swore to Milos that she would never come back and then she left. After that the whole pack wanted to kill me but it was the pack leader's decision. He said that he wouldn't kill me because I cured everyone but I think it was because he didn't want to kill his son. He banished me and I too found the little abandoned house. I found Aaron depressed and alone and I knew that I had found a safe place here.

Aaron and I tried to find the circle. We were going to kill them but little did we know that even asking questions can make people want to kill you. They became suspicious and now there are warrants out for all both our deaths. We did kill a guard though so that's part of it too."

They are murderers, Clary thought but I do get why they did it. She just nodded her head and Vanessa started her story.

Vanessa

"I grew up with my mother. I knew my father though. He was a demon but I never saw him act evil. My parents didn't live together but he dropped by once in a while and on holidays and on my birthday. He had a brother. They were both Eidolon demons. Yes, I had a demon uncle. He was jealous of my father so he decided to kill him and everyone he had ever loved. My Uncle killed my mom in front of me when I was fifteen. He had tied my father and me up. I knew a spell that could transport me away from the house but I couldn't leave my father there to die. He leaned over to me while his brother was sharpening him blade. My dad knew, that I knew that spell and he told me to use it. 'I can't leave you dad' I had told him. 'Yes you can. I love you, just be safe,' He kissed my head and then he yelled at me to go. I did what I was told to do and I found myself in the beautiful green forest I had always seen from my bedroom window. From a humans point of view it would've been a beach but for me it was this beautiful green forest. My father had told me that I wasn't crazy. He told me it was Idris and no human could go there or see it. I wondered around, crying aimlessly and then Loomis and Aaron found me. They took me in. That's when they became my family."

"Did you help Loomis and Aaron find out about the circle?" Clary asked Vanessa.

"Yes I was the guard as they snuck into archives, that they weren't allowed to be in. I did spells to unlock doors and stuff like that."

"Okay. Thanks for telling me all this. I know it wasn't easy for you to do." Clary said. "It's late we should all go to bed."

"So are you going to help us?" Vanessa asked.

"Yes, I will do everything in my power to help you… If you don't treat me like a prisoner or a little girl." She looked straight at Aaron when she said this with a smirk on her face, trying to lighten the mood a little. He nodded his agreement with a slight smile and then Aaron and Vanessa dispersed leaving Loomis and Clary, awkwardly, in the living room.