The island is important and will appear once more in this memoir after the next handful of horrible chapters—which will no doubt make you want to put this book down and find something more pleasant. I visited the place myself after Tobias MacClain’s escape from the penitentiary, thinking he had returned there to hide. It was empty then, and at this point of the story, it felt empty to the three heroes.

The plane, branded as one of Peregrine’s Flight’s fleet, circled above the blackened mess. The jagged spire of the central volcano jutted from the Earth like a barnacle, its toothy mouth wide open, its insides devoured by black smoke that chugged upwards like the cough of a coal-driven train. A small beach encircled the place with barely five feet of black sand circumference, dotted with no more than five widely interspaced coconut palms.

A large black mass pooled in the sea where a stream of hot magma flowed out and cooled.

Tobias couldn’t look out the window to see the great black mass of land, for he had closed the shade and clung tightly to both his seatbelt and his parachute. His eyes were shut. He never flew with them open, nor did he ever fly without taking every safety precaution there possibly was.

There was, after all, always a chance of the plane crashing, and Tobias could always see that chance. On that trip, the heat draft from the volcano caused an upward air current which had made staying on course more turbulent than usual in the little water plane.

It ploughed down, kicking up spray, and slid its barrels onto the beach. Poppy stretched out and secured her whip and poison beads to her belt before exiting. Benjamin followed, squeezing through the small doorway while shaking out his golden gloves. Tobias made sure his glasses were safe in his medical bag and strapped the thing around his shoulder before he joined his team. He cleansed the fog from his prescription goggles and fixed them over his eyes. The ash in the air gained resolution.

Fists in the middle, fists to the sky.

“Let’s do it, Defiance!” Benjamin cried, fully decked in the blue spandex that his fans fawned over. He pulled his own goggles down, the team’s signature “tie-together”, due to Tobias’s impaired vision and aversion to taking the chance of losing a contact lens on duty. He started to lead the way towards the volcano, throwing large boulders and chunks of hardened magma aside to clear a path.

Poppy, in her green and brown “peace-inspired” mesh, loped after. Leather tassels swung from her waist and ribs as she walked, keeping close to him. She had painted small flowers at the corners of her goggles’ lenses.

“When’s that volcano going to erupt, PJB?” Benjamin asked over his shoulder.

“It’s Tobias,” Tobias returned, climbing awkwardly over the large rock that the great Mr. Might had rolled inadvertently into his path. “The volcano is volatile, and the chances that it will erupt in ten minutes are the same as the chances that it will erupt in fifteen, twenty, or even thirty. I’ll let you know when I know.”

The island shook and the trio stopped to spread their arms and hold their balances. The earth trembled underfoot and the volcano growled like an animal. A stream of lava dripped over the mouth’s edge and trickled down the volcano’s side, slow and thick as honey.

Three pairs of eyes locked on the red-hot glow.

“Toby?”

“There’s time,” Tobias insisted. He looked uneasily at the volcano and scurried to catch up with the others. “But it would be best to hurry.”

“Right.”

Benjamin started smacking rocks aside faster, ploughing through the hardened land like snow. Black chunks of basalt flew around them. Ash rained from the sky and made it hard to breathe. It fell across their goggles so that they had to continuously raise their hands to clear the lenses.

“There!” Tobias exclaimed. Everyone stopped. Tobias clambered onto a boulder and pointed to a specific point at the base of the volcano. Basalt chunks of all sizes piled at every nook, but one spot was particularly heavily piled with blockage. The earth trembled again and the man had to hold on tightly to stay planted on the pointy rock. He slid down when the tremor stopped, eyes raised to the trickling mouth. “The entrance to the lair is over there.”

Everything was vibrating. Heat swept over them, smelling of sulfur and soot.

“Alright,” Benjamin said. He jumped up onto the rock and vaulted over, then sprinted to the blocked entrance. Poppy sprang after him, stopping to give Tobias a hand up. They slid down together and hopped precariously over the pockmarked land. Small pools of hot magma bubbled menacingly, interspaced like tidal pools, but with much deadlier contents than crabs.

“Watch out!” Tobias lunged at Poppy and knocked her away from a powerful burst of hot steam. The heat scorched his side, and a flash of something much worse overwhelmed his vision. Something about mottled flesh. A vision of black and red welts and searing pain that made him gasp. He shook his head and his vision cleared to the nearest futures. Whatever it was, there was a dangerous present to worry about, first. “There are geysers here, too. Stay closer to the volcano, but watch the streams that are coming down. They’ll only get faster.”

Poppy nodded and slapped him on the back. “Thanks, T. How’s that eruption coming?”

Tobias bit his lip. His thick brows knit and he rubbed his arm where the heat lingered over his thinned sleeve. “We have time.” He looked upwards and blinked repeatedly, then hollered and started to run with his arms waving. “BENJAMIN! WAIT!”

Mr. Might blinked at him, hands frozen between two large rocks.

“There’s a bomb on the door. If you could carefully clear the way, I will diffuse it.”

“There’s no time to be careful. If Hephaestus Hellfire is in there, we’ll have to grapple with him and who knows how long that will take. This place is—” The ground rattled and the scattered lava pools bubbled louder. Benjamin started throwing rocks again. “The place is going to blow any minute now and I don’t want to be here when it does.”

Tobias lunged forward, despite his senses screaming at him to go back, to get far. “Benjamin, careful! I’ll tell you when it’s due to erupt! I’ll tell you!”

The volcano gurgled, its rumbling scattering their footings again, and another thick portion of hot lava oozed out and began its long crawl downwards towards them. Benjamin started kicking the basalt away more recklessly, using hands and feet together, panic on his face.

Tobias screeched, sensing only danger in the imminent future, and started to run. He tumbled down a drop to the lava pools and dodged a geyser, but no matter where he looked, there was no escape nearby.

“BENJAMIN, STOP!” he shouted, raising his fists. He held his arms protectively over his head.

He jumped away before another geyser could spray, then stumbled over the lava pools, barely keeping his footing. They bubbled and he ran away from them, only getting closer to Benjamin’s recklessness again, and only to be greeted by the result. An explosion scattered the remaining basalt like marbles. Benjamin staggered, swatting the rubble from the air like flies, but Tobias was not so effortlessly strong. He cried out and dove to the ground, because there was no shelter, and there was nowhere to run, and a great boulder was hurtling towards him. He slid in his dive and rolled and tried to curl his legs up to his chest, but he wasn’t fast enough to protect himself. He smacked the device on his wrist and a transparent shield generated, but it wasn’t enough to cover everything.

He screamed. The great mass of black ground his leg against the rocky terrain and drove white light across his eyes. He tried to pull his leg out, but there was no use and it only amplified the pain and the disorientation. Ash and basalt pebbles filled his open mouth and soaked up the last of the moisture until he felt as dry and tortured as the land.

“Toby!” Benjamin peered down from the ledge, blackened with ash. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Why don’t you listen?” Tobias wailed. “Why can’t you listen? Why is it always me?”

“PT, signal the plane to get running, then get back here,” Benjamin commanded. He looked back down at Tobias. “I’m sorry, Tobias. I’ll get you out, but—”

One more mighty tremor shook the land so vigorously that the nearby puddles of lava jumped from their little pools and shivered over the terrain. Tobias cried out as the heat seared through his boot and he tried to push the great basalt rock off.

“Get the governess, then get me out of here!” Tobias howled, collapsing back, hard, onto his shoulder blades. “Don’t engage with Hellfire. Get her, get out, get me. You have six minutes, BJ!”

“Six!” Benjamin cried.

“If you hadn’t set off the bomb, we would have had more time, you—"

He was gone, and Tobias’s chances became and less with each second that passed. He tried again to push the rock, but as one of the less toned heroes of Benediction, his fitness was not at the peak that would allow him to stay crunched, and he fell back again, breathing heavily. He held his shield over his head before the nearby geyser could scorch his cheeks.

Poppy Tris slid down the basalt. “Tobias! Where’s BJ?” she yelped. She tried to push the rock, but he screamed with her added pressure and she staggered back. “Where’s BJ? Why didn’t he lift it off?”

“Another tremor,” Tobias croaked. He inhaled a long, squeaking, shaking breath. “The bomb decreased… the stability… of… OH, HEAVENS.” He sucked in another breath and tensed at the small lava stream that trickled up his leg along the land. It was hot, but it would be hotter when it burnt through his tights. “The volcano is erupting, and the lair is compromised!”

“Is it bad?”

“I can’t see, Poppy!” Tobias snapped. “I only see futures in my line of sight. There’s a twenty-percent chance that Benjamin will appear sooner if you go give him a hand, so please! Please, do!”

Poppy nodded and quickly jumped up the lair entrance. “Hang tight, man! I’ll get him moving.”

He tried to focus. Chances were that if he drove his shield under his leg, the red-hot liquid would only spread out more and cook a larger fraction. Chances were that if he moved his shield anywhere different, the geyser would sear his scalp. Chances were that Benjamin Jones and Poppy Tris weren’t going to save him. The more time that passed, the more safe futures dwindled across his eyes. In some frames of his vision, he could see only black, the indicator of unconsciousness, or death.

In some frames, he saw white, or white-coated images, depicting greater pain. He began to piece together understanding of the flash of vision he had experienced earlier. Red welts, blackened skin. It was already starting where his foot had lost feeling.

Heavy footsteps bounded from the lair and Tobias jerked his head in their direction. Benjamin Jones carried the unconscious governess limply over one shoulder, and a disoriented Poppy Tris over the other. He looked up at the volcano’s slope as the broiling magma approached, then down at Tobias.

“Help, Benjamin!”

Mr. Might started, but a geyser burst, and he stepped hastily back. He hesitated, assessing the options. The magma was well on its way, the volcano murmuring steadily. The smoke and ash in the air where he stood was suffocating. Down below, geysers blew intermittently and unpredictably and magma sluggishly snaked over the basalt, spilled from pools.

“I’ll guide you through the geysers, Benjamin, please! Hurry!” Tobias wailed. “Listen to me! We can all get out alive, there’s still a chance!”

The team captain stared back at the volcano, then down, then jumped to Tobias’s level, “Where do I step?”

“There’s a geyser to your right that blows in three… two…”

Benjamin staggered away, gasping and flailing his arms frantically. He looked again at the volcano. The land was beginning to crack around the heroes. Magma bubbled from each jagged cut, thick as blood. The tremors kept on coming, now relentless. Cracks spread through the basalt like spiderwebbing glass.

“Come on, Benjamin, please! There’s a thirty-percent chance. That’s one hundred percent if you do as I say,” Tobias pleaded. “Leap over to me in five… four... three… two…”

Mr. Might crouched down to spring and Tobias wept with hope. But, his face fell and he felt abruptly cold as Mr. Might sprang the other way. He leaped up to the volcano base and began to run.

“BENJAMIN!” Tobias screamed. He hurled a chunk of basalt at the man’s back, missing by far. “BENJAMIN JONES, YOU’RE A COWARD AND A KILLER!”

The captain called over his shoulder, “Protect yourself, Toby! The rescue ‘copters will come when it’s over! Promise! Protect yourself!”

“I’LL BE DEAD! DEAD!”

Benjamin Jones, the mightiest of heroes, the most highly regarded young defender in all of Benediction, the most publicly beloved of team Defiance, was gone, and Tobias bid the brown-nosing coward good riddance with one angry shout, so wrathful that even the volcano quaked.

He tried to push at the basalt again, but it was no use. He wedged his shield into a crack, propping himself up to sitting while remaining covered, then one-handedly opened his medical bag. He wiped the black from his goggles and widened his eyes and focused.

He had to survive.

It wasn’t the first time that Benjamin’s recklessness had put him and others at risk, but it was the first time that he had been left for dead. The odds were not in his favor now, and every decision made from here would matter.

He dove his hand into the bag and pulled out a pack of foil blankets. There were four, and though they were meant for the cold, they would have to do. Hanging from his shield, he awkwardly shook out each blanket with his free hand and laid all four over one half of his body, shoving them as best as he could underneath his pinned leg and tucking them under his thighs. Then, he stared into the bag once again and concentrated.

He pulled out a pair of scissors. Then, briefly glancing at the lava’s advance, he dug up two oxygen masks and a burn gel, all of which he left at the top of the bag so that he could take it quickly as he needed it when things were over. If he survived to see things when they were over. He sealed the bag, lay back, and hugged it tightly under his shield arm. The geyser sputtered, scalding the back of his head.

He cried out and pulled the shield flatter over his body. The bottom edge touched the boulder, one side touched the basalt terrain beneath him, and the other side he gripped with one hand, which pinned the insulating blankets over him like a tent. The scissors rose and fell with his breaths, and he closed his eyes. It was getting hotter.

It was getting much, much hotter and much, much harder to breath.

Tobias took a deep breath and exhaled, then took one more. From here, as unforgiving lava crawled over his shield and toed over the blankets, his future was up to fate.