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

“Will I look like you when I’m older?” he asks.

The answer to that question is simple. Yes. You’ll look exactly like me when you’re older, but I don’t think he knows the truth. He can see that we look alike, but he doesn’t recognize his older face the way I do my younger. So I stick to the story. “Brothers often do. Some even look like twins.”

“I wish we were twins,” he says with a grin.

The kid has just met me, but I can see in his eyes that he’s already idolizing me. It makes me uncomfortable and I can’t help but wonder how much he’s been told about me. And how much of it is true. “Why?” I ask.

“Because you’re so big.”

That’s the first time in my life someone has called me big, and I almost argue, but let it go because most teenagers are big in comparison to a six year old boy. “That’s it?”

He thinks for a moment and then his eyes go wide. He jumps down from the bed and fishes out a cardboard box from underneath it. Inside are several drawings on water damaged sheets of paper and five very worn crayons. I wonder what will happen when he runs out of crayons? Or paper. It will be a sad day for him.

He shoves a piece of paper in my face. On it is a small boy. And a very tall man. Both look angry. It’s hard to tell what they’re doing, but Luca translates it for me.

“It’s you,” he says. “You’re fighting the bad men.”

“Bad men?”

“I’m not allowed to say their names.”

“How did you know I would fight the bad men?”

“Father told me.” Luca flips to the next drawing.

The giant is on the ground. I think he’s dead. And the boy stands above him. On top of him. That’s when I see the large arrow sticking out of the giant’s head. I take the picture and sit down in an old metal folding chair next to the room’s desk.

“I saw you,” Luca whispers. He pulls the drawing down so we’re looking eye to eye. “I saw you do it.”

It seems impossible—only Ninnis saw what really happened the day I killed Ull. No one else knows. Is Luca some kind of a prophet? “What else do you see?”

“Just the big things. When they happen. Like dreams.”

“You can’t see what’s going to happen?”

He shakes his head, no.

“Can you see anyone else?”

No again. “Just you.”

Footsteps approach. “Don’t tell father,” he says, snatching away the drawing and putting it back in the box. “He doesn’t know.”

Em arrives in the doorway, but Luca is still nervous. He puts his hands behind his back and tries to hide his smile by pushing out his lower lip with his tongue. I used to do the same thing. It’s a dead giveaway that mischief is afoot.

Em squints at him. She’s got thin eyes already and they essentially disappear. Her face is wide, but pretty, and her cheeks are covered in freckles. At least half of her straight hair is brown. She’s also not nearly as pale as me. They’ve been on the surface for some time, I think.

“What are you two up to?” she asks.

Luca’s smile can’t be contained. He’s guilty of something, but says nothing.

“Brother stuff,” I say.

“Yeah,” says Luca. “Brother stuff.”

“Not sister stuff?” Em says.

Luca sticks out his tongue.

Em tugs on my shirt. After meeting Luca, Tobias gave me a pair of old jeans and a flannel shirt that I think belonged to Dr. Clark. I never saw him in it, but I’ve seen him in many others like it. The clothes are too big for me, but I look almost normal for the first time in years.

Years…

“Father wants to speak to you now,” she says, motioning with her head for me to follow.

Luca starts to follow us, but Em stops him. “Just Sol.”

“Aww,” Luca says with a stomp of his foot, but he turns around and goes back into his room.

Em looks back at me and sees my funny grin. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She stops. “What?”

“You called me Sol. Reminds me of home. Of my family. It’s…it’s nice.”

“Oh,” she says. “Good.”

She leads me to my parents’ old room, now Tobias’s and stops by the door. “You can think of us like that now if you want. Like family. Did you have a sister before?”

“I was an only child,” I tell her.

“Sad.”

“I had a friend. Justin. He was like family. Like a brother.”

“Well,” she says. “Now you have a sister. And a little brother.”

I smile wide. “Thanks.”

She opens the door for me and stands aside. Tobias stands with his back to me.

“Come in, Solomon,” he says. “Close the door behind you.”

I do.

“I want to tell you everything, Solomon. About me. About Emilie. And about Luca.”

I see his muscles grow tense. Something is bothering him.

“But I’ve been thinking and came to a realization. I need you to tell me everything.”