Isaac Lahey was born into a happy, loving family, with parents who were happily married and an older brother who always made time for him. Isaac was young when his mother died, and it changed everything. His father quickly became colder, meaner, punishing his sons in extremes for the smallest offenses. His brother Camden was mostly punished with intense practices for the swim team, which their father coached, but Isaac… Well, their dad was a lot harder on him. 

His brother left as soon as he graduated, having enlisted in the Army right out of high school. He died overseas, and things only got worse. Without Camden there to take some of the attention off of Isaac, or protect him, there was no one stopping their dad from being as cruel as he liked, from beating his son to locking him in a chest freezer in the basement. 

Isaac suffered in silence for years, convinced that no one would help him. By the time Derek Hale came around, offering Isaac strength and speed and protection, he figured he had nothing left to lose. He really didn’t regret it, even with police looking for him and hunters chasing him down. Things got complicated when the pack of alphas showed up, determined to kill them all. It ended with Isaac following Scott McCall as his new alpha, and also staying at his house. Besides living with Derek, it was the first time in years that Isaac had somewhere to call home that didn’t make him feel like he was one wrong word from being beaten then locked in the dark. 

Melissa eventually ended up officially taking Isaac in, and he stayed with them through graduation. He got a part time job to help out with expenses despite all of Melissa’s insistence that he didn’t need to, because he knew that he was putting more strain on them financially, and he wanted to help them as much as they were helping him.