As the earthquake intensifies, I stumble down the central corridor between the Animal Barn enclosures. When I pass through the garden area, the skylight cracks and splinters, the ground rising as the habitat sinks, the river flooding into the passage behind me.

With a sense of urgency, I dash into the maintenance bay and hit the button on the wall to activate the garage door. As it rises, the earth outside heaves upward, thrusting a rhino-bear into the air before that same ground falls away, swallowing the creature whole. A wolf becomes the next victim as the area where it stands breaks away into nothing. Farther away, a giant condor lands on top of my upturned tracer, only to plunge into a hole along with the aircraft. The earthquake is the most violent one I've experienced by far.

The forest rumbles, clashing with the rushing river, rocked by the super volcano, deafening my ears.

After the condor fell into the hole with the tracer craft, it reappears, swooping up to escape, only for a fiery tendril to splash up and sear through its wing. The bird spirals toward me as I race away from it, aiming for the rear of the maintenance bay. This leads me toward the trigger release Jinx had told me about.

As I run, a storage crate skids across the floor and knocks my feet out from under me. Behind me, the condor crashes inside the maintenance bay, its body careening toward me as I scramble to crawl out of the way.

I watch in horror, my breath stolen and my heart pounding as the creature's sharpened beak slides toward me, screeching across the floor, halting inches from my side. Its twisted neck is grotesque and shocking, having snapped upon impact.

With the vibrations urging me on, I struggle to my feet and sprint toward the false wall in the back of the room. Behind a control panel, I find the release and press it, and a moment later, a section moves out of the way, opening the tracer's secret hangar. I glance behind me, craning to see the open bay door as it sinks further into the ground, lava licking at the sides. If I don't get out of here, the volcano will swallow the entire habitat... with me in it.

The tracer rocks against the straps that anchor it to the floor. I assume they had to secure the aircraft for the habitat's descent to Earth. The straps are an obstacle to overcome.

Down on my knees, I crank back on the ratchet pulley, loosening a thick band until it's free from an anchor point on the tracer's wing. I repeat the process with the other wing, and then again with the vertical stabilizer at the rear of the craft. The entire time, the hab shakes like it's about to blast into orbit.

Steeling my nerves, I climb up into the cabin and belt myself in. My fingers fly over the dashboard's touchscreen, powering up the turbine engines on each wing. The internal blades sound off with a whomp, spiraling around a central core. Wind bursts from each thruster, gusting off the back wall, edging the tracer out of the secret room and into the hangar, toward the bay doors.

They designed the craft to take off like a helicopter, not a plane, but this situation doesn't allow for a vertical liftoff. The undercarriage scrapes along the floor until I tilt the turbines up at a slight angle to add lift to the forward thrust.

As I glide toward the shrinking exit, the tracer hits the condor carcass, riding up over it, bumping along until I'm clear. The earth continues to shake as tools and equipment jostle off the slanting floor and slam against the transparent fuselage. Wrenches and screwdrivers bounce off the polycarbonate sphere, clanging in various directions. Heavier items, like a chainsaw and a spare generator, smack the tracer with enough force to knock me off course. The latter leaves a blurry scar on the starboard side below the door.

I can't hang around anymore.

In front of the exit passage, the lava spews up in a sporadic geyser.

I shove the throttle forward, creating a sudden power boost, lifting the tracer up and out of the closing mouth of the open bay. The craft shoots out of the habitat, missing a spray of liquid fire by mere inches. As I fly forward, swiveling the turbines to gain more vertical lift, I watch in horror as the top of the tree line races toward me. I feel the G-forces straining against me as the tracer struggles to rise above the tip-top of the forest's edge.

Seconds to impact...

Spruce and cedar branches straight ahead...

At the last second, the tracer gains enough altitude to skim over the treetops. Only a bristle of the tallest trees slaps the wings and undercarriage as I soar higher into the clear blue sky.

As I rise and press further south above the vile forest, in the distance, I glimpse the caldera lake—stunned at what I see. The water line has dropped deeper into the heart of the Earth. In only two hours, the lake's surface is another thirty feet below the previous mark, putting it fifty feet below the rim of the northern bank. Even though it seems to remain at that level, that explains the violent seismic activity and the volatile release of lava beneath the hab.

I turn back to the north to see what used to be our home. As I fly past the forest's northern edge over the open plain near the river, my stomach twists into a knot, my eyes hoping to see some vestige of the habitat. But I only see the roof of the maintenance bay poking above the thick red cauldron of fiery, pooling lava. In what amounts to a minor eruption compared to what the super volcano is capable of, the magma, bright red, streaked with dark lines, swallows the rest of the habitat before my eyes. The Yellowstone River clashes with the magma, its banks diverted around the molten pool, steam gushing into the air, the area where water and lava meet, cooling into an obsidian slag of hardened crust.

As I blaze north, the last of the habitat disappears from view, gone forever. The eruption even chased away the rhino-bears and vile wolves, and scared off the giant condors too.

But like them, I've seen enough.

With Yellowstone behind me, I relax enough to put the tracer on autopilot. I try to contact Eve to let her know I survived, but she doesn't answer. The link between the tracer and the computer at the cabin operates the same as the habitat's comms. If Eve is around when I hail her, she can answer by voice or video. I shove the uneasiness down into the pit of my stomach. I'm sure she's okay. Nothing to be alarmed about.

Halfway through the four-hour return trip, with the sun setting, I sink deeper into my chair, stretching my sore legs, feeling my calves and thighs groaning against themselves.

Again, I attempt to raise Eve with no luck. Now, the uneasiness gives me a case of the jitters as I try to convince myself everything is alright.

I try to think about other things to ease the tightness in my chest. First, I ponder the odds the volcano will erupt again. I feel nervous that the likelihood stands at an all-time high. But thoughts of our impending doom don't take my mind off Eve and the twins. It only makes me think about them more. The only thing that distracts me is Jude's offer. We'll have to decide. Thoughts of a new alliance act as a buffer against my unsettled state. The taut feeling in my chest eases. My stomach calms... until I'm reminded that Eve still hasn't answered my repeated calls.

So, I hail her again, but to no avail.

I sit up in my seat, wanting to get out of the tracer, but all I can do is lean back for the flight's last hour.

Jude's offer doesn't help this time around. I still trust Abraham; he's all we know. All we've ever known. When Eve learns about the habitat, she'll push hard to make a change. And I won't be able to deny the fact our family needs help, as Abraham's plan has done little to secure our future.

The last hour crawls by, until cloaked in darkness, Mt. Joffre shines like a beacon on the tracer's mapping system. The autopilot comes in useful as it sets the aircraft down on the riverbank at the foot of the mountain. As I jump to the ground, my mind is blank and my body numb. I had tried to hail Eve multiple times in the last thirty minutes of the flight, but each attempt ended in failure.

I don't care that I don't have the rifle. All I can think about is Eve and the twins.

When I approach the front steps, I'm shocked to find the door standing open, light emanating from inside.

"Eve," I say. "Where are you?"

I creep in and discover hot embers in the fireplace, but no flames. The light I saw was in the kitchen, a fixture I rigged up from the rocket ship.

I call out to Eve again. Still nothing.

At the cave entrance, I find the back door locked from the inside. This sparks hope that she and the children hid from a predator, barricading themselves inside the subterranean labs to stay alive. I bang on the timbers and holler her name. When she doesn't open, I keep rapping against the frame, my heart skyrocketing into my throat.

"Eve!" I pound the door, splinters driving into my fist, but I'm so frantic it's hard to notice.

There's no sound from the other side.

She's not there.

Until I hear a feeble voice and creaking hinges.

When the door opens, relief floods my heart the moment she sticks her head out. The sight of her scarlet hair and rosy cheeks stirs me. In a blur, we embrace, and for what seems like forever, I hold her in my arms. Until curiosity gets to me.

"What happened?" My eyes trace over the angle of her jawline and slender nose, reassuring me she's unharmed.

"All I know is Jinx detected a threat, rushed us back here, and then went off to fight whatever it was."

"Autumn and Ash, are they okay?"

"They're fine." She squirms free and rushes to the back of the cave, gathers the twins, and returns. A glimpse of their bright eyes brings the rest of my senses alive.

"Where do you think Jinx is?"

"I don't know," she says. "He must be outside."

I tell her how I found the front door standing open.

"Stay here," I say. "Lock the cave door to be safe, and I'll look for him."

Eve nods, and in a flash, I grab a spare rifle from the gun cabinet, a flashlight, and I'm gone, racing through the cabin and out onto the front porch. I close the door and descend the steps two at a time. The snow is thawing, but still clinging to the shadows. Clouds have moved in, the warmer temperatures of the day, dropping near freezing again after sundown.

"Jinx?" I raise my voice while straining to control the volume, my heart thumping at the thought of drawing attention to myself in the darkness.

I didn't notice it on the way up, with my focus on Eve and the twins, but to my right, several tracks lead off into various directions. There are multiple predators, but the paw prints reveal it's something smaller, not the enormous snow lion. Many pads and claws had slashed into the remaining snow and beaten down the forest floor.

When I stumble upon Jinx, I find him much like I found him before, after a battle with a vile wolf. He's rolled up on his side, no evidence of life, with scars crisscrossing his sphere-shaped body. I also find three hybrid cats that resemble a lynx with a pair of saber teeth protruding from their upper jaws, all dead, scattered about. After recruiting Eve to help me roll Jinx up the front steps and into the cabin, I discover the main reason he didn't make it back inside. The fight with the saber cats had drained his battery.

Once we get him charged up, we learn he suffered other damages during the scuffle, in particular, and most alarming, to his comms and weapons systems. No more percussion rounds or grenades. No more direct line to Abraham through the drone. We only have communication through the mainframe computer, which is better than nothing.

Now it's up to me and Eve to defend ourselves, unless we decide to take Jude up on his offer of a better life. And that proposition is becoming more enticing every day.