He didn’t know why he was still alive, but it wasn’t any damn mystical power. His mother was not going to take what had happened, the deaths of five brave men, and make it part of her fantasy, not now, not ever. But she did need his help, there was a stranger in the park with a gun, and he was going to fix that for her. He stopped and opened his ruck and dug out the thigh holster rig he’d had custom-made before he shipped off to war for the first time and slid the Mark 23 into the holster with the ease of long practice. The gun rested comfortably on his upper thigh, right next to his hand. Then he walked down the narrow path to the midway, blinking in the bright sunlight, grateful there weren’t any people around— “Are you Ethan Wayne?” a voice to his right chirped. Ethan tensed and then relaxed when he saw a pretty, wide-eyed blonde sitting on one of the picnic tables in front of the empty Beer Pavilion. She was bundled in a faded blue-green Parkersburg High letter jacket, but beneath that was a short skirt that showed off her long, lean legs, and her blond hair was gathered in some kind of cute fluffy thing on top of her head, and her smile almost hurt his eyes.
