“What are you talking about, you little brat?” Jessica’s voice cracked, but she tried to infuse it with a threat.

Melody didn’t even flinch. She just stood there, a small, pajama-clad warrior surrounded by the wreckage of what was supposed to be a happy morning. Broken pieces of her new chemistry set were scattered across the floor like shrapnel. Her little brother Tyler’s wooden train set, the one I’d saved for months to buy, was smashed to splinters.