Chapter 2

Mac's eyes were drawn to the twin peaks again and again. They were like a magnet for people who lived here.

"Where?" he asked Jenny, feeling his chest tighten.

"At the summit."

"On my way," he said. He hung up and called out to the surfers, "Sorry, boys, gotta bounce."

Dennis whooped. "Bounce?" he said. "Never say that again, Mac man."

"Well," Mac said, "I need to haul ass and get back to work—how's that?"

"Rajah dat," Dennis yelled back at Mac, grinning. "You go grind, brah." All the boys occasionally slipped into pidgin; it was part of the teenage pose.

Mac walked toward his green truck, and Lono caught up to him, board still under his arm, wet hair slicked back. His eyes were serious, troubled.

"That wasn't Kīlauea, was it?" Lono said, referring to the smallest volcano on the island, keeping his voice low.

"No," MacGregor said. "How do you know that, Lono?"

"Kīlauea quakes—they're all shivery and quick, ya? Like a set of waves, one after another, then dying off. That was the big one, wasn't it?"

MacGregor nodded. "Yeah, kid," Mac said, "what we just heard came from the big one."

Lono leaned in and spoke in a low voice, even though no one was close enough to hear him: "Is there gonna be an eruption, Mac?"

MacGregor reached for the door of his truck. On it was a white circle with the letters HVO in the center and the words HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY on the outside. But then he stopped. Lono looked up at him, eyes more troubled than before, a kid trying hard not to act scared but unable to carry it off. Lono said, "You can tell me if there is."

Mac didn't want to say anything that would scare him even more, but he didn't want to lie to him either. "Come with me to my press conference," he said, forcing a smile. "You might learn something."

"Learning all the time from you, Mac man," the boy said.

Of all the kids, Lono was the one Mac had most aggressively encouraged to become an intern at the observatory, recognizing from the start how fiercely bright this boy was despite average grades in school. He was always in search of approval from Mac that he'd never gotten from his father, who'd deserted him and his mother. It was why he'd done as much reading about volcanoes as he had and knew as much as he did.

But Lono glanced back at the other boys and shook his head. "Nah. You can call and tell me about it later. You gonna be here tomorrow?"

"Not sure right now."

"This is bad, isn't it?" Lono asked. "I can see you're worried even if you're not saying it."

"You live here, you always worry about the big one," Mac said, "whether it's your job or not."

MacGregor got in the truck, started the engine, and drove off toward the mountain, thinking about all the things he hadn't said to Lono Akani, primarily how worried he actually was—and for good reason. Mauna Loa was just days away from its most violent eruption in a century, and John MacGregor, the geologist who headed the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, knew that and was about to announce it to the press. He'd always known this day would come, probably sooner rather than later. Now here it was.

Mac drove fast.