Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion Read Free

me.  He swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pointed his fork at me.  “You’ve always been high strung, Hunter.  The past six months especially .  We could all read it in your journal.  You let things get to you.  And I know what’s in those next two pages.  Listen to me when I tell you: do not read them.  The Other You rambled, and it isn’t pretty.”
    I nearly lost it at that point, no longer in the mood to hear what anyone thought about anything , especially when it concerned me, and I certainly didn’t care about his opinion.
    “How could you p ossibly know anything about me?”  I asked, looking out over the water.  “I don’t know anything about you!  From where I come from, you’re dead!  You’ve been dead for half a decade as far as I’m concerned, in fact.”  I paused and leaned away from him.  “You don’t know a thing about me.”
    He sh rugged.  “Believe what you want, Hunter, but you seem exactly how I remember, even if you are from some… alternate timeline, or whatever, and not the actual Hunter I knew.  I can’t explain it and neither can anyone I’ve talked to, but that doesn’t meant I don’t know you .  I do.  Just try and convince me otherwise.”
    I didn’t even bother.  We both knew I couldn’t.
    “See?” He asked.  “Exactly as I remembered.  Now explain that.”
    “You know I can’t.  Net yet, anyway.”
    “That’s fine, Hunter.  Take your time.  It looks like we’re going to be here for a while.”
    “Great…” I muttered.
    He ignored me and decided to put his hand on my shoulder.  I felt my head instinctively snap toward it, my mouth ready to bit off a finger or two, but I didn’t.  I just sat there with the pages between my legs, looking at his hand.
    “I know we’ve had our differences in the past,” the man said as he squeezed my shoulder, “but the Hunter I knew made his peace with me, and so did Artie. I just wish you and I could do the same, so let me start by saying again: do not read the next two pages.”
    H e finished with that and left as abruptly as he’d arrived.
    I turned to watch him walk away, his back a wall of muscle as his figure was slowly obscured by the invasion of night.  I watched him go with a frown, feeling little comfort at his words.  The only reason I’d decided to read the Other Me’s twelfth mission entry in the first place was because I’d hoped to learn where he’d screwed up and what he’d done so wrong that ended with Archer, Artie and the rest of them showing up here.  I’d also hoped to find answers as to why and how they were such different but eerily similar versions of the people I remembered, but it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to do.  I’d always been too curious for my own good, or at least that’s what people kept telling me, and my present circumstances hadn’t changed that.
    After Archer and Artie had told me that they’d found my skeleton in a cargo container with nothing but the orb and my journal in some warped, alternate version of the year 2021, I’d known almost immediately that I had to read it.  But I had been terrified of what I’d learn, and still was, and now that I’d gotten my first taste of it, I was glad for Archer’s warning.
    Despite how convoluted the Other Me had started, I’d been drawn to his words, entranced by his broken story.  If not for Archer’s intervention, I would have read right through to the end without pause, only realizing what I’d done once it was too late, because I already knew how it was going to end.  I already knew the evidence that the Other Me had gone insane would be quite evident in his words.
    I knew this because I could already feel it happening in myself.
    It started six months ago when I tortured one of the most beautiful women in antiquity.
    It had continued when I saw a friend’s head blown to pieces.
    I t was furthered when I’d witnessed another friend’s stepson crushed beneath a