Chapter 1

My parents, Andrew and Debra Hughes, watched me unpack the last box in my new condo, their faces tight with a familiar mix of hope and fear. They had bought this place for me, a quiet, upscale community meant to be a soft landing back into civilian life after the psych facility. After Afghanistan, after the breakdown, this was supposed to be my sanctuary.

"It's a nice place, honey," my mom said, her voice a little too bright. "Clean. Safe."

"It's fine, Mom," I said, arranging my Citadel paints on a new workbench. The neat rows of color were calming. My anchor.

My dad just nodded, his eyes scanning the room as if searching for hidden threats. He was a good man, but he looked at me like I was a bomb that had been defused but might still be live.

A week later, the first shipment arrived. Rare, custom-printed resin miniatures from a small studio in Europe. The kind of detailed figures that took weeks to paint properly. I got the delivery notification on my phone and felt a flicker of actual excitement, a rare thing these days.

I walked down to the community mailroom, a small, stuffy office in the main clubhouse. An old man with a sour face and a postal worker's vest sat behind the counter, sorting mail with deliberate, resentful slowness. This had to be Barney Oliver.

"Package for Jocelyn Hughes," I said, keeping my voice even.

He squinted at me over his glasses. "Hughes. Right. You got a few." He gestured to a corner where three boxes sat. "That'll be sixty bucks."

I stopped. "What?"

"Holding fee," he grunted, not looking up. "Twenty dollars a package. They take up space."

"That's not a real fee. That's extortion."

He finally looked at me, a smirk playing on his thin lips. "Community rules. I run the mailroom. You want your stuff, you pay."

A small, grubby boy of about ten, who had been lurking by a row of mailboxes, suddenly darted forward. He snatched the smallest box, the one with the most delicate figures.

"What's this junk?" he sneered, his voice a mimicry of the old man's. He ripped the tape off, his clumsy fingers breaking the seal.

"Hey! Put that down," I snapped, my voice dropping into the command tone I used in the field.

The boy, Caleb, ignored me. He pulled out a sprue of finely detailed soldiers, their rifles thinner than toothpicks. "Look, Grandpa! The crazy lady plays with army men."

With a flick of his wrist, he snapped a figure in half. The tiny crack of the resin was like a gunshot in the quiet room.

Something hot and fast surged up my spine. The room narrowed. My breathing hitched. My hand twitched, ready to close around his throat. It would be so easy. A single, precise movement.

"Jocelyn!"

My dad's voice cut through the red haze. He and my mom were standing in the doorway, their faces pale with alarm. They must have followed me down.

My dad put a firm hand on my shoulder. "Let's go, honey. We'll sort this out later."

My mom looked at Barney, her voice trembling with anger. "This is outrageous. You can't just charge residents made-up fees and let your grandson destroy their property."

Barney just shrugged. "Pay up or get out. Your choice."

Caleb laughed, a high, cruel sound. "Yeah, get out, crazy lady."

My dad pulled me away, his grip tight on my arm. I could feel the tremor in his hand. He wasn't just de-escalating a situation with a petty tyrant. He was pulling me back from a ledge I hadn't even realized I was standing on.