Prologue
Present day
May 2020
Gavin Aberlour had been called many things over the years. A nutcase, an asshole, a loser, and while they all fit him to some extent, he rather considered himself a masochist. After all, he had to be since he ran a balloon booth at the fair and every pop made him flinch like the dart had hit him straight in the chest. Not to say that he wasn’t all of those other adjectives—God only knew he’d earned his reputation the hard way—but perhaps nothing quite summed him up like the insanity of spending every day willingly enticing people to come by his booth and trigger his PTSD.
Thankfully, his booth was one of the hardest. Very few were successful in popping more than one or two balloons. Occasionally, a good shot managed to win his lady a plush frog, and Aberlour would watch in disgust as the couple would ooh and ahh over it. Five pops. That’s what it took to get one of the smaller prizes. Aberlour could handle five pops. If only just barely.
The larger prizes grew mouldy from the humidity long before anyone could manage to claim them. The last one to succeed was an Army veteran who had been an expert marksman before losing his leg to one of the many death traps that infested the sandbox. Aberlour had almost been impressed by his performance. Almost. He’d only missed two shots, but even two shots were two too many, in Aberlour’s boastful opinion.He’d given him the larger prize—although he’d not technically qualified to get it—because he’d stopped caring long ago, plus he’d been hugely relieved and grateful the vet hadn’t made it to eight pops. Aberlour wasn’t sure he could handleeight pops. Not without the last string holding onto his sanity snapping with a sickening pop.
It was a shame his nervous system was so out of whack. He'd loved this game as a kid. He’d won the hearts of more than a few girls by winning them the largest stuffed toy possible. He’d made it look easy, too. Never missing a shot. Those fun-filled summer days as a teen, spent impressing the fairer sex at the fair, had been the first time, but not the last time, that his perfect aim had been the cornerstone of his reputation. He’d enjoyed every moment, and that was what had led him down the military service path he’d built his life on.Now though, that life seemed not only lost to him, but it was now altogether foreign. Like the memory belonged to someone else entirely. Whatever joy and enthusiasm his aim had brought him in the past had long since waned and frayed along with his last healthy nerve. Working here every day, hustling people into playing this pointless game, was little more than penance.
“Better luck next time, Bud,” he told the teenager currently trying his luck, as he failed to hit even a single balloon.
“Thing’s rigged,” the pimply-faced teen complained, spitting on the ground to punctuate his displeasure. The perky blond by his side seemed to want to agree with him if only to preserve his fragile ego.“I want my money back!”
Aberlour snorted in feigned amusement. He jumped off the ledge of the booth and took two steps farther back than the designated distance. Without so much as a second glance, he threw three darts in quick succession. The triple pop made him flinch especially hard, even as he watched the darts sink into the rubber skin of the balloons. He felt the faintest trace of pride warm his gut, resembling something akin to pleasure.
“Whatever, grandpa!” the disgruntled teen spat out, the insult weak to his own ears. He pulled the perky blond away from Aberlour’s booth quickly, and the trace of pride Aberlourhad felt only seconds before disappeared as quickly as the couple did in the Sunday crowd.
-20/20 Balloon Darts-
Hardest Trick Shot in America!
The sign over his booth was old and rickety from years of exposure to harsh weather. If someone had told him when he was in his early 20’s that he would end up the disgruntled owner of a balloon dart booth at a fair, Aberlour would have laughed his ass off. Hindsight was a bitch that way.
He’d been a proud Force Recon Marine once. Top of his sniper class. Highly decorated.
So well decorated in fact, that he distinctly recalled the irritating clink of his medals striking against one another every time he’d attended the funerals of his brothers in arms. Mocking and loud.Like the cackle of hyenas. Or the cocking of a loaded gun. Their unbearable melody had been outdone only by the 21-gun salute reserved for special military ceremonies.
Somewhere nearby, a balloon popped.
He ducked, covered, and rolled before reality hit and he could tame his paranoid reflexes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the fair will be closing in ten minutes, if you would please make your—”
He evened out his breathing as the voice over the park’s loudspeaker tipped him fully back into reality.
He brushed the dirt off his old jeans, straightened his faded black t-shirt, and did his best to appear casual. Thankfully, no one seemed to have noticed.Not that it would have mattered if they had. Decorum and appearance had long ago become strangers rather than friends.
His phone rang in his back pocket. He reached for it quickly, glancing at the number casually, swallowing a curse as the flashing numbers brought him to a standstill.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard them again. The mocking clanging of his medals while he stood there staring at his phone. How many of his brothers had he buried? How many more would he have to bury before the world was satisfied? He had neither the answer, nor the will to deal with it, so he pocketed the phone before he could fall apart in front of his pathetic excuse of a career change. The device would not be ignored. Its chime was thoroughly obnoxious even from the depths of his back pocket. It was a pointless attempt at avoidance, he knew. He would pick it up eventually. Would have to. But for now, he ignored it, as if refusing to hear the damning words would somehow save him from the knowledge they carried.
As vendors and booth owners went to work around him, closing down for the day, Aberlour couldn’t seem to focus. Lost in a haze of emotions, his only clear thought was how dry his mouth suddenly was. He felt desperately parched for something bitter and strong, and he knew just the place.
“Hey, Abe, we were thinking of going for sush—”
Aberlour ignored his booth neighbour’s attempt at communicating, barreling past the younger man like an angry bull. He heard nothing beyond the persistent ring of the phone in his back pocket—and he stomped his way off the fairgrounds, his steps so heavy with grief that the phone in his back pocket might as well have been playing a funeral march.
Chapter 1
July 2012
The day Gavin Aberlour turned 18, he’d enlisted.
The proud son of two broke hippies who’d left everything behind to do things their way, he carried that chip on his right shoulder, and his rifle on the left, wherever he went. There wasn’t anything about him that wasn’t slightly crude, raw, and off-putting. He was a good-looking young man with the charm of a wolverine and lungs the same colour as the charcoal in the mines his father had once tended to.
