Page 56 of Deacon

The basalt beneath our boots shuddered and shifted like thin winter ice over a black lake.

Baz leaped up from his crouch. ‘The volcano’s going off.’

‘Shit!’ Yael yelled.

She took a wrong step back and staggered over a rock.

Her arms flailed as she stumbled backward, her boot catching on a ridge before she went down onto the volcanic crag.

She went limp, and for a moment I thought she was unconscious.

‘Yael!’ I shouted.

She stirred and groaned even as the mountain shuddered again, knocking me to my knees.

The still sky disappeared in seconds, replaced by a sudden blast of hot, sulfurous air that hissed from the new fractures in the bedrock of the crater.

‘Salim, help Yael up!’ I yelled, scrambling on hands and knees across the trembling stone, my fingers clawing at my camera as I threw the straps over my shoulder. ‘Leave the heavy stands! Just get the battery packs and the data drives!’

Salim lunged through the drifting smoke, hooking his grip under Yael’s armpits and hauling her to her feet.

She was pale, palms bleeding from stopping her fall onto the volcanic stone, but she gripped her gear and backpack like a lifeline.

‘Head down the freakin’ mountain!’ Baz roared, his voice stripped of its usual humor and replaced with cold authority.

He was already on his belly, pinning down a tripod that was sliding toward the crevice.

The entire brink lip tilted a fraction of a degree, a sickening lurch that told us the shelf we were standing on was giving way.

‘We need to move! Down! Now!’ Baz yelled, abandoning the extra camera gear, slamming his pack shut and hoisting it over one shoulder.

‘Go, go, go!’ I pushed Salim and Yael ahead of me, the mountain roaring behind us.

We turned our backs on the smoking crater and fled to the base of the ridge, chasing solid, safer ground.

A towering wall of black ash and choking heat billowed into the sky, blotting out the sun.

‘Run!’ Salim roared, wrapping his arm around Yael’s waist and pulling her down the steep path.

I scrambled down the shifting terrain after them, but my boot caught a loose shelf of volcanic shale.

I took a brutal, twisting fall onto the precipitous embankment.

A sickening crack sounded.

Seconds later, a white-hot spike of agony flared through my right leg, radiating from my ankle to my knee.

I collapsed onto a rocky precipice, blacking out from the pain as the mountain began to rain ash down on us.

Chapter 11

DEACON

‘Dad, check this out!’

I leaned back on the lounger under the shaded terrace, eyes on Raff as he flew into a backflip dive at the deep end of the pool.

Water went everywhere as he hit the surface.