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

Then I see her looking down at me. She’s smiling. And her eyes...her eyes!

“No!” I scream, swinging Whipsnap out, intending to sever the woman’s throat, but I don’t come close.

She stands, pushing herself back into the corner, but never taking her eyes off me. She reaches out a shaking hand.

“Stay back!” I swing again, this time throwing myself off balance. I drop Whipsnap and catch myself on the bed.

She speaks a single word that throws me violently into the past once again. “Solomon.”

She’s looking down at me, holding me in her hands, wrapping me in something warm. I’m used to warm and wet, but warm and dry is better than cold. And now she’s speaking to me. Smiling as she coos my name. “Solomon,” she says. “Solomon.” Her inflections are soothing. Her white teeth hold my gaze as she speaks. She brings me up close, so close I can feel her warm breath. “You are a precious boy,” she says, and then turns me away.

As she turns me I see the room through blurry eyes. But I see shapes I will come to know well and recognize them instantly.

Outside the memory, I shout for them. “Mom! Dad! Where are you?”

The memory of my birth flickers.

The stone room spins around me.

I fall to my knees.

My mind is on fire. Pressure builds around the chink in whatever mental dam has been put in place. Memories come fast, but are really just a quick spray. The first year of my life returns. The dam weakens. Then breaks.

In a single moment, like the explosion of an atomic bomb, thirteen years of perfect memory—nearly seven million minutes of data—slams into my mind at once.

I’m two years old, wearing blue footie pajamas. I’m staying at my grandmother’s house with my parents. And I’m entertaining them by standing in the potty-training potty and waving my arms around.

I’m five now. My parents are ice skating, motioning me to follow. I don’t have skates on, and the ice is slippery, and I can see flowing water in the distance where the river enters the lake. I know that’s bad and I worry about falling through.

Seven. I’m riding my banana seat bike in the driveway. I don’t ride in the street anymore. Not since a neighbor got hit by the diaper truck after riding straight out of the driveway. It rained recently. I can smell the water on the warm pavement.

The next three years flash past in a blur of school, playing and being tested. Then I’m in school and the kids are all older than me. I feel very small and afraid. All I can think about is going home, and that’s okay because I know all the answers.

Thirteen. I’m sharing pizza with Justin and my parents. There’s a volcano for my present. A song about brick houses. And an explosion of red. Then comes the ticket. One of the pivotal moments of my life. I flash to the trip. Dr. Clark is with me, telling me I’m different, and special. And Mirabelle. The nicest girl I ever knew, who managed to steal my heart and image with the click of a Polaroid camera.

The night of my capture returns in detail. Ninnis attacks. I strike Aimee. The generator. Then the pit.

I pitch forward and vomit.

When the contraction ends, I suck in a bile flavored breath.

Then I’m vomiting again. It feels like my organs are sliding out of my throat, like there will be nothing left of myself when I am done. When I realize that is exactly what is happening, I accept it, and wait.

When I’m done I’m surprised to find only a small puddle beneath my mouth. I have not eaten in some time and the majority of my heaves brought up nothing, except, I think, my soul.

When I stand, I am myself again.

I am Solomon.

I bring my eyes up and meet hers once more.

She can see the change in me. In my eyes. In my body language.

I am Solomon.

Solomon!

“Solomon,” I whisper as though hearing my name for the first time.

She nods. “Solomon.”

When I speak her name, my last bit of toughness breaks. “Aimee?”

She reaches out to me with both arms. I rush to her and bury myself in her embrace, weeping for what I’ve done to her, for the life that I have lived since I last saw her, for thinking—for believing—that the woman who first showed me love was evil. Her arms are strong around me. Her head is pressed on top of mine. And she speaks a sentence that clutches my throat and squeezes, “You are a precious boy.”

I have been reborn.

Into her arms once again.

And despite all I have done, all the pain I have caused her, she has loved me first.

Again.





34



My senses return long enough for me to close the door. I can’t be seen like this. They might kill us both. Or decide to break me again and steal my memories a second time. Were I still alone, I think I might prefer death to losing myself again, but I now have Aimee to consider.

And I brought her here. I brought her here.