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PROLOGUE: THE HOMECOMING OF MADNESS

~JINX~

Magenta twists in my hair like veins of rebellion, curling into teal tips with colors reversed from my sister's signature ombre.The mirror image.The reflection meant to stay beneath shadows while she basked in light.

The forest whines beneath my boots as I trek through remnants of our escape. Colored gas lingers in fading wisps, painting the night air with memories of chaos and gunfire. My fingers trace the empty holster at my thigh where my rifle once rested — now purposefully abandoned with the tactical gear I'll no longer need.

"You realize this is technically suicide, right?" The voice crackles through my earpiece, dripping with that familiar combination of concern and exasperation I've grown addicted to over the years.

I smirk at empty air, knowing he watches through satellite feed despite my instructions to disconnect.

"Maverick," I acknowledge, voice carrying none of the hesitation gnawing beneath my determination. "Thought I told you to cut comms an hour ago."

"And I thought you weren't actually stupid enough to go through with this plan." His sigh carries through static, heavywith emotion he pretends doesn't exist. "But here we are – me watching you march toward certain death, you grinning like you've never been happier."

He's not wrong.

The truth burns in my chest with surprising clarity. I haven't felt this alive in six years – not since they ripped me from these woods and thrust me into a life never meant for me. A world of responsibilities, expectations, and constant reminders that I wasn'ther.

Wasn't Nyx.

"It's not death," I correct, stepping over fallen branches with practiced silence. "It's homecoming."

My mind splits like it always does when emotions threaten to overwhelm my careful control. Half of me remains present, tracking the growing proximity of barbed wire and concrete walls. The other half floats somewhere beyond rational thought, whispering fragments of memories that never belonged to me.

Family dinners in houses I never lived in. Training sessions with operatives who could never quite hide their disappointment. Mother's calculated gaze always finding me lacking – a poor substitute for the daughter stolen from her grasp.

"You're doing that thing again," Maverick interrupts, dragging me back to solid ground. "That thing where you drift off like your brain's splitting into different dimensions."

"Better than being boring like you," I retort, but the familiar banter centers me. Grounds me in ways medication never could.

His laugh carries genuine warmth despite the dire circumstances.

"Says the woman voluntarily returning to a torture facility. Real exciting life choices you're making, boss."

The asylum looms ahead, its silhouette an architectural nightmare against the night sky. Floodlights cut throughdarkness, illuminating the precise path I intend to take. No stealth this time. No tactical approach or clever extraction plan.

Just surrender with the burden of knowledge heavy in my chest – that beyond those walls waits Subdivision Zero.

My real pack. Mine by design, by cosmic alignment, by everything the universe got wrong six years ago.

The thought sends electricity racing beneath my skin, anticipation mixing with something dangerously close to joy.

"They're in there," I whisper, more to myself than Maverick. "All four of them. So close I can almost taste their scent."

"You don't know that. Reports indicate?—"

"Iknow," I cut him off, certainty burning like venom in my veins. "Can feel them even now. Like phantom limbs finally reconnecting."

The connection pulses somewhere beneath rational thought – four distinct threads of sensation humming with proximity after years of aching absence. Hints of personalities that once wrapped around my soul like protective armor return in fragments as the distance closes:

Riot's volcanic rage simmering beneath control. Sable's coldly calculating judgment. Corvus's detached omniscience. Ash's burning determination.

Pieces of a puzzle forced apart now calling me home.

"You remember the protocol?" Maverick asks, voice dropping to business-like precision. "Two weeks maximum. If I don't hear from you through the implant, I trigger extraction whether you want it or not."

"Just make sure the tech works when I need it," I respond, pushing away the spark of warmth his concern ignites. "And remember – no one else knows. Not Mother. Not the council. Not anyone at Parazodiac."