Page 30 of Bone Year

Everything’s been weighed and catalogued and the viscera bags all put back into the body. “We have our presumed cause of death and all the measurements, but we didn’t note any anomalies,” I say, looking over our paperwork.

“There are too many to name. The body is clearly fucked up. This thing has a number of unusual injuries that didn’t heal properly, but organ wise I don’t think we know enough to call anything an anomaly,” Miles says, his eyebrows scrunching as he pulls his gloves off and his mask down, taking in a deep breath like he’s been dying to do that since we started. His glasses finally clear up with the mask off.

I read over the sheet again at all the notes I took and the weights Nyra wrote down as Draven dissected the body. “Wait.” I say, before we call time. “I need to see the heart.”

Chapter Nine

“She doesn’t freeze because she’s weak. She freezes because she remembers. If she’s ever going to be herself again, she’ll have to face the memory.”

— Jace’s private notes

“Get the heart out,” I tell Draven since Miles has already stripped off his gloves and Nyra refuses to touch anything.

“I told you the muscle was torn near the apex. He has a stab wound.” Draven pulls open the viscera bag nestled in the body cavity, sounding impatient.

“The average adult heart weighs 250 to 350 grams,” I say, not backing down. “Given this crawler is male, he should be on the higher end of that range. And since you said he was stabbed, I would expect that number to be even higher due to bleeding and inflammation.”

I wave my hands, gesturing for him to hurry up and pull it out for us to see.

“Your point?” Miles asks, folding his arms.

Draven lifts the heart from the bag, cradling it in his gloved hands and holding it out for me to examine. It looks wilted and shrunken.

“My point,” I say, “is that Nyra wrote down that this heart weighs 108 grams. That’s a fucking anomaly if I’ve ever seen one.”

Miles lets out a low whistle. “Oh shit. The human may not be useless after all.”

Nyra scoffs, but there is something else beneath it, surprise or reluctant respect. “How do you know all of that?”

I don’t bother answering her. These people are not my friends, and they don’t need to know about my past.

“You’re right,” Draven says, turning the heart over in his hands, studying it with new interest. “It does look small and thick. The walls are denser than they should be.”

I file that detail away and quickly fill out the rest of our sheet: cause of death, listed anomalies, organ weights, observations. My pen moves fast, my handwriting messier than I would like but legible enough. Draven places the heart back in the bag and draws the sheet over the body once more, covering the crawler’s ruined face.

“Time,” he calls out.

Our supervisor reaches over and taps the timing device beside her. The red numbers freeze, ceasing their relentless climb upward. She takes the chart and all the paperwork from my hands. Then she writes our final time at the bottom of the sheet. Ninety-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds.

I didn’t completely fail my team, but I’m marked now as the human girl who froze, the one whose hand shook when the scalpel was placed in it, who couldn’t bring herself to cut into the body.

They don’t know why, and I don’t want them to.

It’s safe to say we lost this competition. By the time we hurry back into the room where the party was held, it is already full of students. Only two teams finish after us, so we’re not last, but closer to it than I would like.

“That thing was vile.” Lux shudders beside me, rubbing her hands over her arms as we wait to see who won. Her team finished first, so the odds are in her favor. “My father says we will dissect all sorts of twisted creatures in Architecture of Flesh. Something to look forward to apparently.” She wrinkles her nose. “It’s my first class tomorrow, so I guess I’ll be skipping breakfast.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s my first class too, with Professor Nestor,” I say.

“Thank the gods.” She exhales dramatically. “At least we can help each other get through it.”

I’m glad I will know at least one person in my first class tomorrow, but unlike Lux, the idea of learning more about what twisted creatures exist out there doesn’t repulse me. It excites me. Dissecting one sounds even more interesting. I want to understand what they are and how they work. I don’t know much about any of the fissure-born creatures. I assume my parents never taught us out of fear of scaring us. Or maybe they never believed it was something we would need to know.

I know they at least hoped that.

“It seems we have our winning team.”

Malric’s voice echoes across the room, and everyone falls silent. I straighten, my attention snapping to the front.