“You have five minutes, tops,” warned Gazzy, our nine-year-old explosives expert. “This whole part of the island’s gonna blow.”

“Right,” I said, but I was already sprinting up the hill through the hailstorm of fiery pebbles. I might have flown faster, but I couldn’t risk singeing my flight feathers right now. I grabbed the backpacks and raced back.

The ground shuddered again—a churning quake this time that felt like it was shifting my organs around. I lost my balance and catapulted forward, the provisions we needed torn from my arms as I face-planted hard.

Sprawled in the dirt, I focused through the dizziness just in time to see a smoking boulder the size of a refrigerator bouncing toward my head. I tucked my chin and rolled, saying a silent prayer.

Then I heard the sound—BOOM! It was like a rocket had been set off inside my brain. I may have blacked out, I don’t know.

Shaking my head, I opened my eyes and gasped. The boulder had obliterated the space where I had just been lying, but beyond that, the top of the volcano was now shooting off a thousand-foot column of liquid fire and smoke.

I gaped, mesmerized, as bright orange lava oozed over the cliff we’d called home for the last three months. Then the sky started to rain blazing rocks, big ones, and I snapped back to attention.

Craaaaap.

I leaped to my feet, frantically grabbing backpacks and scooping up the scattered tools that were all we had left. The ground around me was being covered with hot ash, and as I reached for Gazzy’s pack, it went up in flames. I snatched my burned hand back, swearing as the nerves convulsed with pain.

“Max, hurry!” My ears were ringing, but Angel’s voice was clear inside my head. Ordinarily, I would be annoyed at being bossed around by a mind-reading seven-year-old, but the terror behind her words made my throat dry up.

I looked back at the volcano. Considering the size of the boulders it was hurling out of its crater, conditions could be even deadlier farther down the mountain.

What was I thinking, leaving my family? Forget the tools—I had to run!

My mouth filled with the taste of deadly sulfurous gas, and as it tore at my lungs I wheezed, choking on my own phlegm while glowing bombs fell all around me. I stumbled through the ash and rubble, tripping again and again, but I kept going.

I had to get back to my flock.

Another hundred yards and I would be at the meeting place. Pumping my legs, I took the turn onto the rock outcropping at top speed…

And sailed toward a river of boiling lava.

2

WHOAAA—