The dog, brought quietly along for this unofficial search, sniffed the ground with renewed vigor and began to tug insistently toward the dense line of woods behind the property. Its low whine and focused pull were unmistakable. Manny’s pulse quickened, a spark of grim hope cutting through the dread. The animal had caught a familiar, living scent, one that could lead them directly to the missing boy.
Without hesitation, Manny followed the dog into the oppressive dark of the woods. Brittle branches snapped beneath his heavy boots, the sound shockingly loud in the frozen silence. The winter air burned like needles in his lungs with each gasp, and his breath rose in frantic, pale clouds that vanished instantly into the black night. The dog moved quickly but with absolute purpose, its nose glued to the ground, its tail held stiff and straight. It was a creature on a singular mission, chasing a trail that Manny desperately hoped still led to a person and not just a memory.
They stopped abruptly when the dog let out a single, sharp bark. There, snagged on a jagged, protruding root, fluttered a torn piece of a jacket, its fabric stiff with a rime of frost. Manny knelt and lifted it carefully. It was small, far too small for an adult. His stomach tightened another notch. This wasn’t carelessly discarded clothing; it was a breadcrumb, torn away unintentionally by a child in flight, trying to survive.
A thin, fresh snowfall dusted the ground like powdered sugar, but beneath its delicate layer, Manny’s trained eye spotted a series of faint, disturbed impressions leading erratically deeper into the forest. They were light, uneven strides—a pattern that spoke of exhaustion, pain, or both. He crouched lower, tracing the vague outline of a heel with his gloved fingers, his mind vividly painting the picture of a small, desperate boy stumbling and staggering through the freezing darkness alone.
The dog whimpered softly, a sound of urgent communication, and nudged its muzzle against the rotten opening of a hollow tree trunk. Manny dropped to his knees to peer inside. There, half-buried among a damp clutch of dead leaves, lay two items: a grimy, worn shoelace and a small, carefully folded square of paper. His heartbeat thudded a deafening rhythm in his ears as he reached into the hollow, his fingers brushing against the cold, damp bark that surrounded this precious clue.
With hands that trembled slightly despite his will, Manny unfolded the note. The handwriting inside was uneven and jagged, scrawled under duress, but it was unmistakably legible: “Help! My sister, Mia, and I are being hunted. Max” The simple, stark message hit him with more force than any shou
The accusation was specific, not a vague threat. Max hadn’t named his pursuer, a critical omission that frustrated Manny, yet the boy had been thinking clearly enough to try and guide any potential rescuer toward the horrible truth.