He had no problem reading thrillers — or news items, for that matter

Avi’s heart pounded so hard and so fast that he wondered for one wild moment if his heartbeat was loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. Then his brain un-froze, his senses returned, and the thunderous silence splintered apart with the twitter of the birds and the rustle of leaves.

From the distance, Avi could hear the men’s voices again. They were fainter this time, more subdued. Avi clenched his fists together, his mind spinning. Had someone just been — murdered?

“They don’t know we’re here,” he muttered to himself. “We can get away, keep moving, hide in the trees. They don’t know...”

Elchanan edged to a thicket of trees, peering behind them back in the direction they’d come from. Avi’s hand flew out, and without thinking, he grabbed his partner’s shoulder. Elchanan whirled around.

“Listen,” Avi said, as forcefully as he could while keeping his voice at a whisper. “Listen, we need to be careful here. There are people around, and they — they sound dangerous.”

An expression of uncertainty flitted across Elchanan’s face, then the brash confidence was back.

“Dangerous? Maybe they were the guides... maybe there was a bear or something. Maybe...”

“Maybe they just killed someone and we’re hanging around like sitting ducks in their path!” Avi snarled. The ominous crack echoed in his head — it had been a gunshot, it must have been. They had to get away from this part of the trail, they had to move.

“So let’s find out what they’re doing. Let’s check out what’s going on. We can sneak through the trees. They won’t see us. But I’ll bet you it’s the guides and they just had to deal with some animal or something...”

Elchanan moved again, back toward the source of the sounds.

“No!” Avi threw himself across the path. Blood rushed to his head, heightening every one of his senses, so the trees stood out in sharp, vivid relief against the sky and the sound of the wind filled his ears. There was danger in the woods with them, he could smell it, feel it in the crawling goosebumps shivering up his arm. “Elchanan — no!”

Through the adrenaline, he realized vaguely that it was the first time he was calling Stark by his name. Maybe that was what did the trick.

Elchanan stopped, reluctantly. He turned an impassive face to Avi, raised one eyebrow. It was suddenly, blindingly clear to Avi that Elchanan Stark was afraid, too. He just handled fear differently than Avi did; he wanted to prowl back between the trees, find the source of the noise, fight them head-on if need be.

And yet they were two boys, alone in a forest, and not everything could be fought head-on.

“Elchanan,” he said again, his voice low and urgent and deceptively calm. “Listen. We need to figure this out. We need to think about the options before we move. Those voices — it didn’t sound good. It sounded like adults, they sounded angry. Someone shot something. I don’t think we should risk them realizing that we’re here. There are stories, you know, when people witness a murder....” Avi stopped and shuddered. He had no problem reading thrillers — or news items, for that matter — from the comfort of his bedroom. But here, in the middle of a huge forest, landing in the epicenter of the adventure — well, that was kind of a different story.

For one interminable moment, Elchanan hesitated. Then he gave one curt nod.

“Okay. I thought we should just try to see who they are, what they’re up to... it might help us to—”

“To what?” Avi could not think of a worse idea. Sneak up on what might be a bunch of murderers? No way was he going to agree with that plan.

“To know what we’re up against,” Elchanan muttered, finally.