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Johanna hasn't even worked there for a a full month when it happens. She's seventeen and already, her first summer on the logging yard has been unusually rough— storms that shake their tents at night, the vicious wind. And Kristin has been worrying about fungal growth, going on and on about how dangerous it is and how ridiculous it is that no one will let her do anything about it.
But Johanna likes the work, to be honest, probably more than she should. There's something about getting a weapon in her hands and bringing down something so much bigger than her.
Kristin is Johanna's shift lead, and it was Kristin who once said that there was something wrong with people who actually enjoyed this work, enjoyed bringing down natural wonders. Johanna doesn't disagree, but she also knows how old forty is in this business and that the owner has been trying to replace her for a while and that Kristin won't let him.
There's something wrong with Kristin and Johanna both, apparently. But privately, Johanna suspects that even the other two women in their tent, Meg and Kelly— softer-spoken girls in their early twenties who were forced into this business by virtue of being tall and athletic and poor—enjoy the power sometimes.
That night, winds wake all four of them. Johanna thinks about fire, which has been increasingly making its way into Seven.
But she works harder than most of the other women, because there's something inside her that makes her even though she knows she's just fueling leaflets of Capitol propaganda, and she finds that the work can exhaust her. She and Kristin are the only ones who fall back asleep.
At least for a couple more hours. At dawn, at least an hour before the wake up bell, she feels Meg shake her and Kristin awake. Johanna sees Kelly start to take down the tent.
"We have to set up somewhere else," Meg says, pointing upwards. Johanna follows her gaze and sees a twisted, precarious branch. It's heavy, the weight of a small tree. It could fall at any second, could pierce or crush them, and it rustles in the wind.
She throws on her jacket and starts helping Kelly with the tent, muttering curses under her breath as Kelly rolls her eyes.
"Fuck," says Kristin, now wide awake. Johanna is working on the post closes to the tent door, so she sees as Kristin begins gathering their things from where they've piled them at the center of the tent, tossing them all in a single trash bags.
Johanna is going to kill Lucas for not believing Kristin about the fungus. He doesn't know the forest as well as the loggers and she—
The branch falls.
It's twisted up and wild, black and gray-brown, and Kristin is pinned under it, and it's a million things at once. She's crushed, and she's trying to get breath but she can't, and her dark hair flies in the wind. Her face is bleeding too from a different part of the branch, and that could get infected if she survives this, and Johanna hopes there's a fire that burns this district to the ground.
The smell of blood, metallic and sharp. It's not particularly bad, it smells like the old rusted forklift before they replaced it, but Johanna wants to throw up.
Meg leaps into action, running to get one of the medcore girls from almost a tenth of a mile away, and Johanna is left with Kelly, who is grabbing Kristin's arm uselessly. Johanna can relate to the desire to do something, but she doesn't think Kelly is helping, so she slaps the older girl across the face.
And Kelly responds with an unseen vitriol. "Johanna, this is not the fucking time. Kristin is dying and you're hitting me. Unbelievable."
Johanna stares down at her boots, and wonders if she'll ever forget the tang of blood.