Page 5 of Bone Year

Jace drops from the air, slamming down onto the man’s shoulders and driving him to the ground. The impact knocks the breath from my lungs even though it isn’t me taking the hit. The man thrashes beneath him, limbs jerking violently, a low growl reverberating through the air. He thrashes around like an animal caught in a trap.

He twists, shoving Jace off, and springs back to his feet in one fluid, unnatural motion. He lunges again, teeth snapping as if he’s trying to tear into flesh instead of fight.

This sick person is fast, but Jace is faster.

He ducks to the side and plunges his dagger into the man’s chest. I expect him to cry out, to grab the wound, to falter, but he does none of it.

Instead, his hands clamp around Jace’s arm, his jaw snapping wildly, teeth clicking inches from skin like he’s trying to bite through bone.

I grab the nearest branch and swing it as hard as I can, the crack of wood against his skull making my stomach turn. It doesn’t slow him.

Jace kicks him backward, sending him crashing to the ground, and then he’s on him again. The dagger rises and falls over and over. The man’s movements grow weaker until finally his body goes still.

Jace stumbles back, chest heaving. I rush to his side, my heart pounding so hard it hurts as we stare down at the body.

“Is he a vampire?” I whisper.

Jace shakes his head slowly. “No, vampires look like you and me. They don’t look like this even when they’ve been starved.”

I want to ask how he knows what a starved vampire looks like, but it’s not the right time.

“Maybe he was bitten by an animal or poisoned,” I say, my voice strained. “Maybe it drove him mad.”

Jace’s jaw ticks as he looks back down at the man.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, “let’s hope that’s all this is.”

We debate taking him back to the clinic to study him, to see if we can figure out what was wrong, but we both know it’s not a good idea. My mother and sister are there. What if whatever he had is contagious.

The run back is quiet. Even when we reach the village, we don’t say a word. The adrenaline fades, leaving an uncomfortable feeling of unease. We weave through the carriages lining the road, the familiar sights doing nothing to settle my nerves.

When we reach Jace’s house, I slow to a stop. “You don’t have to walk all the way back with me. It’s your day off.”

He shakes his head. “No, I want to grab a few supplies from the clinic, then I’m going back to check the body more closely.”

“I can go with you, if you want.” The offer feels hollow the moment it leaves my mouth.

He studies me for a moment. “You don’t want to do that. It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

He’s right. I don’t want to go back out there. Not today. Maybe never. “I’ll see if I can find anything like this in my father’s notes.”

I’m planning to spend the rest of the afternoon going through his things anyway.

Jace nods, and when we reach the clinic, I don’t follow him in. Instead, I enter the next door over. My father’s office.

The room smells faintly of dried herbs and ink.

I move deeper into the room and light the lantern on his desk. The flame flares then steadies, amber light filling the space with a warm glow. Bookshelves line the walls, crowded with ledgers, bundles of notes tied with twine, heavy tomes, and jars filled with crushed leaves and powders, each labeled in his careful hand.

Everything is exactly as he left it.

I take a seat and run my fingers along the edge of the desk, over the nicks and scratches I remember making as a child while he worked late into the night. I used to sit on the floor beneath this table, pretending to read while listening to the scratch of his pen and the steady rhythm of his breathing. I used to think that sound meant safety.

Nothing has ever really scared me, aside from death.

Even as a little girl, far too young to understand what death really meant, I thought about it constantly. Awake at night, I’d wonder what happens after a heart stops, terrified that one morning I would wake and find my parents gone or my sister Briana cold and still beside me.

I don’t know if something happened to me when I was very young, some old trauma sealed behind a door my mind refuses to open. I only know that death and what comes after has haunted me far longer than it should.