Hunted Read Online Free Page B

by the stars, he’d have a better chance of making it out of here alive. But astronavigation hadn’t exactly been a high priority on Eisenhower Holt’s training regimen. Hamilton could have been walking in circles for hours and he wouldn’t have even noticed.
    He looked back down and was startled to see a light not too far ahead of him, bobbing up and down. A flashlight! Hamilton started for it, picking up speed as he went. Maybe his family was looking for him. But as he drew closer, he slowed down. The man in front of him wasn’t wearing a purple parka. Whoever it was, it wasn’t another Holt.
    “Hello?” Hamilton called.
    The flashlight beam swept over and landed directly on him. Hamilton shielded his eyes and squinted, trying to see the man’s face, but it was hidden behind a black ski mask. He couldn’t even be sure the person was male.
    For a moment, the two stared at each other, standing motionless in the night. Then the man turned and started running away.
    “Hey!” Hamilton called. “Hey, wait!” He started after the figure, though the wind was blowing harder now, and Hamilton had to struggle against it to keep going. This person had to be one of the backpackers Eisenhower saw earlier.
    Of course, the guy didn’t seem too interested in helping Hamilton. It pained Hamilton to admit it, but maybe his father was right. Maybe that group had been other Cahill agents, trying to beat the Holts to the Clue.
    As he ran through the Arctic night, Hamilton fought an intense battle with the wind and the snow just to keep going. The man was several paces ahead, just out of reach, and the way he moved through the snow told Hamilton he had a lot of practice with navigating frozen climates.
    “Wait!” Hamilton yelled again. “I just — want to talk!” He was starting to gasp for every breath. Slogging through the snow on beat-up snowshoes was wearing him out, in spite of his Holt training. Hamilton could sprint for miles in the sun without slowing down, but the cold seemed to draw the strength right out of him. His sides were splitting, a feeling Hamilton hadn’t experienced since he ran his first marathon at the age of eight. Whoever this person was, his training rivaled even Eisenhower’s.
    But Hamilton would not give up. He couldn’t. This man was his only chance of escaping the Arctic.
    He wasn’t sure how long they ran. Hamilton’s vision was a little blurry. Sweat was starting to drip from his brow, and the longer he ran, the less chilly he felt. In fact, his body was getting unpleasantly warm inside the parka now. But Hamilton didn’t dare take it off. He’d have to discard it to keep up the pace, and if he left his parka behind, he’d die in the cold as soon as he stopped running.
    And then, without any warning, the man in front of Hamilton disappeared.
    Ham ran a few more steps, then slowed to a stop, squinting into the darkness. The man he was chasing had been holding a flashlight, which made it easy for Hamilton to stay with him, but now the light was gone. Ham’s eyes readjusted to the dark, trying to see into the inky blackness of the snowscape around him.
    No. He couldn’t be gone. He
couldn’t
be. Another unfamiliar sensation gripped Hamilton’s heart, as if an invisible hand had reached through his chest and started squeezing. It was panic. He was alone in the Arctic, and he’d completely lost any sense of where he was going. Hamilton was utterly lost.
    He sank to his knees in the soft snow beneath him. Sweat began to freeze into icy droplets on his face, and already, he felt the chill returning to his body, creeping along his skin, settling deep into his bones. For a moment, Hamilton Holt did not move.
    He wasn’t sure exactly what made him look up. There was no sound, exactly. It was more like a feeling that he wasn’t alone. But when Hamilton dragged his eyes up from the snowy ground, it took a moment to register what he was seeing. Because standing directly in front of him was an