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

Merrill eyes widen. “It never occurred to me.”


“Well he knew,” she says, pointing to me. “He remembered everything about Wright’s father, including that he didn’t bring his son to Clark Station 2 because he was convinced the boy would die on Antarctica. And now he has. For him.”

Merrill chews on his lower lip. “I would like to believe you. But I have no memory of the boy. It’s too much to believe.”

“If she’s with him,” Mira says. “She might be compromised.”

“Whitney,” Kat grumbles, using Mira’s last name, her voice revealing the sting she feels at Mira’s accusation. “The hell?”

If Kat’s support isn’t enough to convince them, then I’m not sure what will. I decide to focus on events that might not make sense with me removed from them. “When you came back to Antarctica, with my parents, and with Mira, do you remember the Sno-Cat ride?”

Merrill nods.

I look to Mira. “Do you remember riding with Collette?”

Mira says nothing. She just glares.

“How could he know this?” Aimee whispers.

“Do you remember stopping?”

Both shake their heads, no.

“Do you remember the storm that arrived later that night?”

This gets a nod from Merrill. “We had to leave because of it.”

“Aimee was injured that night.”

“Yes,” Merrill says, searching his memory.

“How?” I ask.

Both of them think hard on this, but can’t come up with an answer.

“She was unconscious,” I say. “Bleeding. And you can’t remember how it happened?”

They’re both more confused than before.

“You need to leave them alone,” Mira says, stepping between Aimee and me. Her fists are clenched, and I note she has a gun holstered to her hip, along with a machete. The holster strap holding the gun in place has been unclipped. This is not the girl I remember. Could she have changed so much?

I ignore her demand. I know this is hard for her parents, but they need to remember, and not just to keep my heart from breaking.

“And you know how it happened?” Merrill asks.

“The storm woke me up. I wandered outside. You had attached a bell to my door—”

Aimee’s eyes blink. “I remember the bell... It woke me up.” She looks at Merrill. “Why did we—”

“The bell was for me. To let you know that I was awake.” I sense Merrill is about to ask a slew of questions, but continues on, getting to the point of the story. “It was snowing. The wind was picking up. But I wasn’t alone. A man—a hunter—was watching me from the dark. He spoke to me. Threatened me. And when I felt a presence behind me, I struck out. But it wasn’t the man. It was Aimee.”

I sense Merrill’s growing anger. I’ve just confessed to knocking out his wife.

“It was an accident,” I say. “I was just thirteen. One year older than Mira at the time.” This additional information doesn’t calm him at all, so I push on. “While Aimee lay on the floor, the power went out.”

“I remember that, too,” Aimee says. “I had just woken up.”

“Who went out to turn it back on?” I ask.

They both search for an answer but find nothing in their memory.

“Someone you never saw again? Someone lost in the storm?”

Merrill starts to nod slowly.

“How can you not remember that person?” I ask, growing a little bit angry myself. That they cannot remember me going missing is offensive. “How can you not remember the name of the thirteen year old boy who went out into an Antarctic storm and never came back? I was kidnapped that night. Taken underground and tortured. I was turned into a monster. And, like you, I forgot—”

The last words out of my mouth hit me hard. They haven’t forgotten, they’ve been made to forget. They’re compromised somehow. In the grip of the Nephilim.

I step back away from them, a bit of fear creeping into my eyes.

Kainda and Em react to my body language. Kainda reaches for her hammer, Em for her knife. The soldiers around us subtly switch off the safeties on their rifles.

“Everyone calm down,” General Holloway says. “I’ve given you all long enough to work this out, but it’s clear there’s some confusion. If you are intent on settling this through violence, you will not survive.”

The general doesn’t quite understand what he’s up against. He doesn’t know what I can do, what Kainda, Em and Xin are capable of, or that the hundreds of hunters spread out among his men might not respond well if I’m attacked. A lot of people will die.

So I relax my posture, despite feeling like we’re in real danger, and ask Em and Kainda to do likewise. Neither of them likes it, but they listen.

The general steps forward, “Glad to see you’ve got some self-control, now let’s—”

I tune out the general. I recognize the beginning of a lecture designed to disarm and placate, and I’m hardly interested.

Xin, I think.

I know, he replies. I am searching their minds. Adoni is confused, but himself. The same is true for the General. He does not trust you, or me, though.