Read Gorgon: An Alex Hunter Novel for Free Online

It was such a normal and comfortable scene, so unlike his own chaotic life. He shut his eyes.
    I told you. You’re nothing but a memory now. Nothing but a … ghost.
    Alex’s eyes watered. They looked so happy – the perfect family unit.
    I could win her back , he thought with little conviction.
    The man put his arm around Aimee and together they walked slowly away. She called the boy to follow, but he stood for another few seconds staring at the monument.
    You’ll never win her back , the voice sneered .
    A snake slid out of the long grass into the warm sunlight, and moved quickly toward the boy. Alex recognized the brown triangular banding and powerful short body – a copperhead, venomous, and deadly to a child. He tensed, judging he could make the several hundred feet in a few seconds. But before he could move, the snake reared up.
    The boy’s hand shot out, grabbing the snake around the neck. He showed no fear as he held it, turning it one way and then the other. The snake’s mouth opened and its long fangs reared forward. The boy squeezed, and squeezed, until the head fell to the side, the flesh compressed within the scaly skin.
    ‘Joshua.’ It was Aimee calling to him, and he dropped the snake and scampered after her and the man.
    Alex’s mouth curled into a smile. He’s like me , he thought. So it can be passed on.
    He stepped out from behind the tree again. He had so much to tell the boy, so much he could show him. He could help.
    Help? You can help get him killed.
    Alex paused.
    When they know what he is, they’ll cut him up – like they tried to do to you.
    I won’t let them – I’ll tear them apart. Alex’s fingers came together, gouging a chunk of bark from the trunk.
    You can’t even protect yourself , the voice said . Look at you – you have to hide like an animal. You couldn’t protect him all the time. Once they know, they’ll snatch him up, and he’ll end up in a hundred pieces – an experiment, a lump of tissue under a microscope. That would be your legacy. What would Aimee say if you brought that to her door? A disdainful laugh. You know what she’d say, don’t you?
    He closed his eyes and ground his teeth, knowing that everything the voice said was true.
    Aimee lifted the boy and placed him on her hip. He looked back to where the snake’s body lay, then up to the tree. He stared, seeming to see through its trunk, and Alex knew the boy saw him.
    Joshua waved.
    Alex lifted a hand and waved back slowly.
    After another few seconds, he rolled away around the trunk, his eyes watering.
    Get the fuck out of here, dead man.
    Alex nodded, and started to walk.
    *
    He jacked a car, and drove without a plan, cap pulled down to hide his face from the many cameras he knew were watching. Alex had been a HAWC, a Hot-Zone All Warfare Commando, and he’d been the best of them. He had lived off the land, slept under snow, hidden under burning sands and in more urban environments than he cared to remember. He knew how to make himself invisible if circumstance demanded it.
    He also knew who, and what, he was. He was capable of things that other people couldn’t hope to accomplish. He was different, very different, and because of that people either wanted him dead, or wanted to dissect him to see what made him tick. His own military science division had tried to take him down, then the Israelis. The memory of Adira Senesh, the Mossad agent who had saved his life, and nursed him back to health, made him frown. She had turned out to be no better than any of them. Trust was the one thing he missed, and without it he felt truly lost and alone.
    His memory had slowly returned, but there were still some gaps. When he pushed hard to see into those dark places, he got tattered images of freezing caves, and loathsome jungles inhabited by creatures that should only exist in nightmares. The headaches still kicked his ass, but given he’d been almost liquefied by a black bacterium from the center of the Earth, he