Josh’s mouth dropped open, but he was too shocked to make a sound.

Holly grabbed his hand.

“Don’t move,” she whispered.

Even from twenty feet away, Josh could see muscles bulging under the mountain lion’s short golden fur.

She stared at them. Then she let out a bone-rattling scream.

Yeooooooooowwwwww!

Josh’s blood turned to ice as the mountain lion exploded off the ground and came charging toward them. Josh grabbed hold of Holly, pushing her out of the lion’s path. Or maybe it was Holly who grabbed him and pulled. Still, Josh braced himself for the slashing claws, for the knife-sharp teeth.

But the lion raced right past them, a golden blur. Josh met her eyes as she flew by. The animal didn’t look ferocious or vengeful.

She looked terrified.

Just then, a huge flock of birds zoomed overhead.

Four squirrels raced by.

All the animals were heading in the same direction as the mountain lion.

Holly’s face lit up at the sight of all the animals. But her expression changed to terror as a new sound — a crackling roar — rose up around them. This time Josh knew it wasn’t an animal.

They both turned, and Josh saw it — a bloodred glow in the distance, getting bigger by the second.

He and Holly both stared, hardly believing what they were seeing.

The wildfire. It had found them.

The glow got bigger until it looked more like a wall — a wall of flames that was moving right toward them.

“Josh! Run!” Holly screamed. She grabbed his hand.

They took off. But they had barely taken ten steps when they were hit by a powerful gust of hot wind. And suddenly there were embers everywhere — burning sparks and flaming chunks of bark and wood. They swarmed all around them.

Josh let go of Holly’s hand and flung his hands wildly, brushing the embers away. The attack went on, though, the embers biting into his skin like the needle-sharp teeth of a flaming monster.

But it wasn’t his or Holly’s flesh that the embers were really after. It was the tinder-dry trees, the fallen branches and piles of dried-up pine needles. The embers showered down, greedily taking hold, setting fires wherever they landed.

On treetops.

WHOOSH!

On branches.

WHOOSH!

On the forest floor.

WHOOSH!

Josh and Holly began running down the path again. They zigzagged from one side of the path to the other whenever a new fire whooshed to life in their way. With every gust of wind, that giant wall of flames raced closer to them. And the noise …

A nightmare of sounds pummeled Josh’s ears. The fire’s roar, the moaning wind, the cracking and snapping and hissing of the burning trees. The sound was louder than any plane or train. It was as though the air itself were shrieking in agony.

Three deer shot by them, diagonally off the trail. Holly grabbed Josh’s arm.

“Josh! Let’s follow them!”

Josh remembered what Lucas had said, about animals and wildfires.

That lion — she must have sensed the fire coming this way before Holly and Josh had. Those other animals, too. And now these deer … maybe they knew the best route to escape.

“They’re heading for the river!” Holly said.

The river! Josh thought. Smart deer!

They took off into the trees. Maybe that wall of flames wouldn’t be able to follow them across the river. It was a natural fire line, like Lucas and Eleanor had described. And the cool water would protect Josh and Holly from the embers.

They ran faster.

And then:

Boom!

A tree in front of them exploded. The wood splintered and shards sprayed out. Holly tried to pull him sideways. But his hand slipped out of hers. He looked up just in time to see a flaming limb sailing through the air, taking aim at his skull.