Tanya took his hand and pulled him while his father and uncle still gazed through their binoculars. “Let’s go for a swim,” she whispered.

He laid the rifle against a bale and took after her.

He caught her within ten paces and together they plunged into the trees, laughing. The shrieks of howler monkeys echoed through the canopy like wailing clarinets.

“You know what the natives say?” Shannon said, slowing to a walk.

“What do they say?” she asked, panting.

“That in the jungle if you move, they will see you. Unless they’re downwind, in which case they see you anyway, with their noses. Like I saw you sneaking up behind us back there.”

“No you didn’t!” She swung around and faced him on the path. He pulled up, pretending to study the branches. But she saw the sparkle in his emerald eyes.

Her heart swelled for him and she grabbed his head and pulled him to her mouth, kissing him deeply. The heat from his bare chest rose to her neck. She released him and glared mockingly.

“The wind was full in my face! There was no way you smelled me. Admit it, the first you knew I was behind you was when you turned around!”

He shrugged and winked. “If you insist.”

She held him, wanting to kiss him again, but resisting for the moment. “Okay, that’s more like it,” she said, smiling, and they walked again.

“The Kalashnikov,” Shannon said.

“What?”

“The Kalashnikov,” he repeated, grinning slyly. “It’s what I was talking about when you walked up behind us.”

She stopped on the path, recalling the discussion. “Come on, you oaf.” She grinned mischievously. “Beat me to the pool.”

She ran past him, springing on the path ahead of him, placing each footfall on the squarest surface possible with each stride as he’d taught her. He could have passed her easily; could’ve probably taken to the trees and still reached the pool ahead of her. But he remained behind, breathing down her neck, silently pushing her to her limit. The path quickly entered thick, shadowed underbrush, perpetually damp under the canopy, forcing her to skip over the occasional stubborn puddle. Thick roots encroached on the muddy trail.

She veered to a smaller path—scarcely an indentation in the brush. The sound of crashing water grew in her ears and a haunting image flashed through her mind: Shannon standing next to the falls by the black cliffs, over a year ago. His arms had been spread and his eyes were closed and he was listening to the witch doctor’s mutterings before the old bat Sula’s death.

“Shannon!” she’d cried.

Their eyes flickered open as one—Shannon’s bright green, Sula’s piercing black. Shannon smiled. Sula glared.

“What are you doing?” she’d asked.

At first neither replied. Then the old bat’s lips screwed into a smirk as he said, “We are talking to the spirits, my flower of the forest.”

“Spirits.” She shot Shannon an angry glance. “And what spirits are you talking to?”