Page 27 of Bone Year

Nyra’s voice snaps through the room as she wheels the scale closer to the gurney with a harsh metallic scrape. I glance up from the instruction pages I’m holding as Miles pulls the sheet the rest of the way off the body.

What the fuck is right.

I have no idea what bloodline the body is. There are no obvious tells, no wings, no elongated canines, no animal body parts. It is humanoid enough but at the same time all wrong. The proportions are slightly off, the limbs too long, the joints bent at angles that suggest they once moved in ways joints should not.

I take a step closer to study it and have an uncomfortable realization.

It looks like the thing Jace and I ran into in the forest back home. The crazed man who attacked us and tried to take a bite out of Jace. A shiver spreads up my spine at the memory, the wild, unseeing eyes, the guttural sounds, and the creepy twitching motions he made when he moved.

I cannot believe I forgot to ask Jace if he went back to study the body that night.

Draven pulls a second stainless steel table alongside the gurney, already lined with neatly arranged instruments, scalpels of varying sizes, forceps, rib shears, and a bone saw wrapped in oiled cloth. Everything gleams under the harsh lights.

“It’s a crawler,” he says, lowering his head to catalogue the instruments.

“I’ve never seen one in person before.” Miles lifts one of the man’s hands, examining the bloody, shredded arm. His fingers are steady, but I notice the slight widening of his eyes above his face mask even through his fogged glasses.

“Neither have I,” Nyra says as she takes in the body. “I wonder if every team has a crawler.”

It clearly was a man at some point, but his body is covered in injuries, deep cuts, ragged claw marks, patches of skin torn away entirely to reveal the gray-pink tissue beneath. His eyes are open and abnormally red, as though every blood vessel burst at once and seeped into the whites and irises. He stares blankly at the ceiling.

What did he see in his final moments? Was any part of him still human enough to be afraid?

Nyra snatches the chart and instruction pages out of my hands, causing me to drop the ink pen. It clatters against the floor and rolls toward the drain in the center of the room.

“Here.” She shoves a scalpel into my palm, the metal cold even through my gloves. “You can start weighing the organs. I don’t want to touch that thing. Who knows if it’s contagious?”

I turn the scalpel over in my hand.

“Afraid you might catch something, Nyra?” Draven doesn’t look up from the instrument tray, but I can hear the smirk in his voice. “Cowardice, perhaps? I hear that spreads quickly.”

Nyra’s eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”

“You’re excused.” He finally glances up, honey eyes sharp. “But Maelis is not your assistant.”

Is he...defending me? So it is acceptable for him to order all of us around, but when Nyra does it, he has something to say about it. Interesting.

Draven’s gaze slides to mine, and whatever gratitude I might have felt evaporates instantly. There’s no warmth there, no camaraderie, only calculation.

“Don’t look so surprised, Freckles.” His eyebrow twitches, and I am certain there is a sarcastic smile hiding behind that mask. “I prefer my teammates competent. You can thank me later.”

“I’d rather swallow the scalpel,” I mutter.

“Kinky.” He turns back to the body. “But save the dramatics for after we win. First incision, who’s making it?”

“The human should make it.” Miles stands back next to Nyra, folding his arms across his chest. “She needs to prove she belongs here.”

“I have a name,” I mutter. I want to kick him, but instead I swallow the rage and take his place next to the body.

“Standard Y-incision.” Draven stands across from me on the other side of the gurney. “Acromion to acromion, meeting at the xiphoid process.”

I know he means cut from shoulder to shoulder and down the front of the sternum so we can open him up. I know the anatomy and have done this before.

I take a long inhale, forcing my lungs to expand. I can do this. I have assisted my father on autopsies before in the clinic back home. I have held tools like this one and made cuts like this one.

My father.

I bring the scalpel over the body and hover the blade close to the skin.