The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

My heart races. Each breath comes faster than the last.


I can breathe, I realize.

Maybe some parts of me are still free of the ice. If only I could feel cold, I would know! Of course, if I could feel cold, I would be dead.

With the realization that I won’t die any time soon, I begin to calm and think about my situation in a more rational way. I fell asleep while sliding down the mountainside. And I somehow ended up buried by snow—an avalanche maybe—which melted around my warm body and then refroze while I slept.

But more comforting than that is the knowledge that this ice, no matter how much of it is surrounding me, is part of the Antarctican environment, and as such, part of me. I focus on the ice and try a new trick. I can’t feel temperature variations, but I still might be able to warm things up a few degrees. I picture the water molecules, bound tightly together. Move, I will them, vibrate! When a drop of water strikes my eye, causing me to blink, I know it’s working.

The white light grows brighter. Then becomes tinged with blue. And then—daylight.

“Argh!” I scream, as I look directly into the sun.

The remaining ice and snow surrounding my body explodes away from me as I sit up and cup my hands over my eyes. Two bright green and purple circles dance in my vision. When the pain subsides, I fumble blindly through my belongings and dig out the sunglasses Ninnis gave me—gave Ull—to use on the surface. I haven’t had to use them in ages, but they are essential for visiting the outside during the daytime. I’m like a vampire now, unable to bear the daylight. And it’s not just my eyes. My skin is so fair now that I’ll burn quickly without clothing.

Even with the sunglasses on, I have to squint so hard that my vision is almost nothing. So I almost miss the structure behind me when I look around. But the ribbed surface of the steel catches my attention. The top of a rounded structure is poking out of the snow.

Most of the surface is covered in snow, but I can see bits of gray. I climb atop it, crawling over its bumpy surface, feeling the metal with my hands. It’s a roof. The roof of Clark Station Two! My excitement mixed with my near blindness hides a ridge in the hard surface and when I shift forward again, the metal beneath my hands falls away.

I plummet forward and am swallowed whole by the buried structure. My landing is pitiful, like I’m a nerdy little kid tripping over his shoelaces again. But I’m not upset. I’m laughing, because when I open my eyes, I recognize where I am.

“Clark Station Two,” I say to myself. “I’m back.”

The place does not return my greeting. Some of the place has been rearranged; the couch is in a different spot. And some of the equipment is missing—like the computer. But the space remains the same. I sit up and find that I’m lying in the very spot where Aimee lay unconscious after I slugged her. That was just moments before I ventured out into the night on a mission to restart the generator. A mission that ended with my abduction.

Back on my feet, I dust the snow and debris from my body and head for what was—for a day—my room. The hallway running straight down the center of the hanger-like building has doors on either side. Mine is the third on the left.

When I open it, a bell rings further down the hallway. The sound strikes me like a baseball bat to the gut. The bell. It rang the night I left this room, alerting Dr. Clark and Aimee that I was awake. It’s what sent her after me. I shake my head, wishing for a moment that I did not have a photographic memory. The past sometimes replays itself when I least expect it.

Of course, sometimes the past doesn’t even need to be replayed to have an effect on me. I open the door and find my suitcase on the floor between the small desk and unmade cot. They left it here. They left everything I brought with me. They really thought they would find me, I think. I fall to my knees, unzip the luggage and stare down at my clothes. I sit there, hands shaking, and pick up a black turtleneck. I bring it to my face, and breathe in.

I’ve read that scent is the biggest trigger for memories. As the smell of my mother’s favorite fabric softener tickles my nose, I know it’s true. My body tenses as I squeeze the fabric against my face and let out a desperate wail. This was the smell of my childhood. Of my innocence. I wore it, like a cologne, every day of my life before being taken from this place.

When I start to hyperventilate I realize that revisiting the past like this might be just as bad for me as facing down replicas of my parents in the pit. It’s breaking me.