Timber

Chapter Twenty-One: Fallout

Hazel bolted toward them, lungs sucking air. Her heart was punching the insides of her ears, not just from the sprint but the size of the thing crashing down. The redwood's sheer weight could take half a dozen other trees with it, like a forest-wide chain reaction.

Silus shouted, but she didn't register the words. Her focus had narrowed. Snow caught her eyes as she threw herself toward them, closing the gap in seconds.

With a force she didn't know she possessed, Hazel shoved them both hard.

"Go, move!" she shrieked as the two men stumbled backward.

The air behind her spliced open. A roar of splintering trunks and screaming branches. Another tree gave out. Then another.

She pushed harder, exerting all her strength, throwing her arms against the weight of the two men. Silus's call was distant, almost lost amidst the deafening roar of the trees as they surrendered to gravity.

Her body pulsated with adrenaline as she managed to heave Snow and Festus out of the path of the collapsing trees. Snow staggered. Festus tripped over a root. Just as they began to fall away from her, fingers clamped around her arm.

Snow.

With one final burst of effort, she wrenched herself forward, using her right arm and the momentum of Senator Snow's grip to attempt to escape the last of the malicious branches. One sliced down like a blade, ripping through her left side. Neck to shoulder, a tear of fire.

The three of them hit the dirt hard. Just a breath away from the massive trees now lying defeated behind them. A couple more crashed down the slope in succession. The sound rolled through the arena like woody thunder.

Hazel didn't move. Couldn't. Her chest heaved. The coppery taste of blood coated her tongue.

But they were alive.

For now.

Three redwoods lay scattered like corpses, roots exposed and limbs splayed across the forest floor. Dirt had been churned up in thick clouds. The air was all dust and splinters.

Hazel's eyes narrowed as she studied the uprooted base; the roots were like twisted, mangled spider anemic legs.

"Oh my god." Festus raked his hands through his curls, pulling out an errant stick.

Snow and Festus looked just as wrecked as the forest around them. Dirt streaked across Snow's jacket. His hair now stuck out in uneven tufts. The white flower was gone.

He wasn't saying anything. Just watching. He studied her as if he were seeing her for the first time. Then his expression shifted, so faintly she almost missed it. A resolution was taking shape behind his eyes.

For a second, he looked like he might say something.

Then her brother shouted her name.

Hazel turned, blinking grit and pulverized root powder from her eyes. Silus and Leo were threading their way through the wreckage.

Silus reached her first. "Are you hurt?"

"Yeah. I think so," Hazel muttered.

"You two good?" Leo scanned Snow and Festus. His brow contracted as he hauled them upright.

Festus nodded like his brain was still buffering. "That was insane."

A crowd of peacekeepers and other spectators, drawn by the sound of the commotion, began to converge on them.

Silus crouched beside her, reaching for her bicep. As soon as he pulled, Hazel sucked in a sharp breath. Pain raced across her shoulder like someone had poured simmering coals beneath her skin.