Afterschock || Tim Bradford

Some people break like glass.
She learned how to shatter silently.

Skylar Altair wasn't supposed to wear a badge.
At twenty-four, she was a certified prodigy-board-certified in half a dozen specialties, a nuclear medicine and neuro-path genius, a rising star in a white coat. The youngest. The brightest. The girl who never failed.

But trauma doesn't care about your résumé.
Loss doesn't care how many degrees you've earned.
And the world doesn't stop spinning just because your soul flatlines.

Her father died in front of her eyes when she was twelve. Her brother spiraled into addiction. And when she needed help most-when everything was taken from her in a single night-no one came. Not the heroes. Not the law. Not the system.
So she stopped waiting.

They taught her how to save people.
Now she's going to learn how to protect herself.

With the steel of a soldier in her blood and the precision of a surgeon in her bones, Skylar trades the hospital lights for sirens, scrubs for Kevlar. Becoming a cop was never the plan. But plans change-especially after the aftershock.

In a city that's breaking at the seams, Skylar will have to confront everything she tried to bury: her rage, her grief, her brilliance, and the terrifying possibility that maybe-just maybe-she was meant for this life all along.

Genius. Survivor. Rookie.
She's not trying to be a hero.
She's just trying not to fall apart again.