A Fistfull of Charms(92)

“She knows it won’t be me,” Peter said, his voice calm. He seemed to want to talk, and I would listen. I owed him that.
He met my gaze and smiled a scared little-boy smile. “She promised me she’ll be happy. I used to be able to dance with such passion that it could drive her wild. I want to dance again with her. I will remember her. I will remember the love.”
“But you won’t feel it,” I whispered.
“She’ll feel love for the both of us,” Peter said firmly, his eyes on the passing bridgework. “And in time, I’ll be able to fake it for her.”
This was not happening. “Peter—” I reached forward to turn on the lights, and he stopped me with a shaking hand on my wrist.
“Don’t,” he said. “I’m already dead. You’re only helping me move forward.”
I could not believe this. I didn’t want to believe it. “Peter, there’s so much you haven’t done. That you might do. There are new medicines every day. I know someone who can help you.” Trent could help him, I thought, then cursed myself. What in hell was I thinking?
“I’ve had all the medicines,” Peter said softly. “Legal and otherwise. I’ve heard the lies, I’ve believed the promises, but there’s nothing left to believe in but death. I’m moved around like a table lamp, Rachel.” His voice faltered. “You don’t understand because you aren’t done living yet. But I’m done, and when you’re done…you just know.”
The car ahead of me flashed its brake lights and I took my foot off the accelerator. “But a lamp can light a room,” I protested, my will weakening.
“Not when the bulb is broken.” His elbow was on the windowsill and his head was in his cupped hand. The setting sun became flashes on him as the girders holding the bridge arched up. “Maybe by dying I can be fixed,” he said over the rumble of a passing truck. “Maybe I can do some good when I’m dead. I’m not good for anything alive.” 
I swallowed hard. He wouldn’t do anything after he died, unless it met his needs.
“It’s going to be okay,” Peter said. “I’m not scared of death. I’m scared of dying. Not dying, but how I’m going to die.” He laughed, but it was tinged with bitterness. “DeLavine told me that being born and dying are the only two things we do perfectly. There’s a hundred percent success rate. I can’t do it wrong.”
“That sounds funny coming from a dead man,” I said, my breath catching when a big truck went past, shaking the grate we were on. This was wrong. This was so wrong.
Peter pulled his elbow from the window and looked at me. “He said how I feel when I die is the one thing I have control over. I can be afraid, or I can go boldly. I want to do it bravely—even if it hurts. I’m tired of hurting, but I can take a little more.”
I was starting to shake, though the air from the setting sun coming in was warm and my window was down. His soul would be gone forever. The spark of creativity and compassion—gone.
“Can…can I ask you something?” I ventured. The oncoming traffic had grown thin, and I prayed that they hadn’t shut down the southbound lane for some reason. It was probably just Nick driving slow so we would meet somewhere in the middle as planned.
“What?”
His voice was tired and weary, and the sound of lost hope in it knotted my stomach tighter. “When Ivy bit me,” I said, darting a glance at him, “some of my aura went to her. She was taking my aura along with my blood. Not my soul, just my aura. The virus needs blood to stay active, but is it more than that?”
His expression was unreadable, and I rushed forward with the rest of it while I still had time. “Maybe the mind needs an aura to protect it,” I said. “Maybe the still-living mind needs the illusion of a soul about it, or it will try to get the body to kill itself so that the soul, the mind, and the body will be back in balance.”
Peter looked at me from Nick’s face, and I saw him for what he was: a frightened man who was stepping into a new world with no safety net, both extremely powerful and tragically fragile, reliant upon someone else to keep his mind and body together after his soul was gone.
He didn’t say anything, telling me I was right. My breath quickened and I licked my lips. Vampires take auras as their own to fool their mind that a soul still bathed it. It would explain why Ivy’s father risked his own death to provide her mother with his blood and his alone. He bathed her mind in his aura, his soul, in the hopes that she would remember what love was. And perhaps, in the instant of the act, she did.
I finally understood. Exhilarated, I stared at the road ahead, not seeing it. My heart was pounding and I felt light-headed.
“That’s why Audrey insists on being my scion,” he said softly, “even though it’s going to be very hard on her.”
I wanted to stop. I wanted to stop right there in the middle of the freaking bridge and figure this out. Peter looked miserable, and I wondered how long he had agonized over remaining as he was and causing her pain, or becoming an undead and causing her a pain of another kind. “Does Ivy know?” I asked. “About the auras?”
He nodded, his eyes lighting briefly upon my stitches. “Of course.”
“Peter, this is…is—” I said, bewildered. “Why are you hiding this from everyone?”
He ran a hand over his face, the angry gesture so reminiscent of Nick that it shocked me. “Would you have let Ivy take your blood if you knew she was taking your aura, the light from your soul?” he asked suddenly, his eyes fixing on mine vehemently.I glanced from the road, blurting, “Yes. Yes, I would have. Peter, it’s beautiful. It brings something right to it.”
His expression went from anger to surprise, and he said, “Ivy is a very lucky woman.”
Feeling my chest clench, I blinked rapidly. I wouldn’t cry. I was frustrated and confused. I was going to kill Peter in less than three miles. I was on a train I couldn’t stop. I didn’t need to cry, I needed to understand.
“Not everyone sees it like that,” he said, the shadows of the passing girders falling on him. “You’re truly odd, Rachel Morgan. I don’t understand you at all. I wish I had time to. Maybe after I’m dead. I’ll take you dancing and we can talk. I promise I won’t bite you.”
I can’t do this. “I’m turning the lights on.” Jaw clenched, I leaned to reach the knob. He wasn’t done yet. There was more for him to learn. More he could tell me before he dropped his thread of consciousness forever.
Peter didn’t move as I pulled the knob. I leaned into the seat, my face going cold when the dash remained dark. I pushed the knob in and pulled it back out. “They aren’t working,” I said as a car passed us. I pushed it in and tried again. “Why aren’t they working, damn it!”
“I asked Jenks to disengage them.”
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted, hitting the dash and hurting my hand through the pain amulet. “That damn son of a bitch!” Tears started leaking out, and I twisted in the seat, desperate to stop this.
Peter took my shoulder, pinching me. “Rachel!” he exclaimed, his guilt-ridden expression looking at me from Nick’s face tearing at me. “Please,” he begged. “I wanted to end it this way because it would help someone. I’m hoping that because I’m helping you, God will take me even without my soul. Please—don’t stop.”
I was crying now. I couldn’t help it. I kept my foot on the accelerator, maintaining that same fifteen feet between me and the next car. He wanted to die, and I was going to help him whether I agreed with it or not. “It doesn’t work that way, Peter,” I said, my voice high. “They did a study on it. Without the mind to chaperone it, the soul has nothing to hold it together and it falls apart. Peter, there will be nothing left. It will be as if you never existed—”
He looked down the road. His face paled in the amber glow. “Oh God. There he is.”
I took a breath, holding it. “Peter,” I said, desperate. I couldn’t turn back. I couldn’t slow down. I had to do this. The shadows from the girders seemed to flash faster. “Peter!”
“I’m scared.” 
I looked over the cars to the white truck heading for us. I could see Nick, Peter’s doppelganger disguise gone and the legal one in place. Hand fumbling, I found Peter’s. It was damp with sweat, and he clutched it with the strength of a frightened child. “I’ll be here,” I said, breathless and unable to look from the looming truck. What was I doing?
“Please don’t let me burn when the tanks explode? Please, Rachel?”
My head hurt. I couldn’t breathe. “I won’t let you burn,” I said, tears making my face cold. “I’ll stay with you, Peter. I promise. I’ll hold your hand. I’ll stay until you go, I’ll be there when you leave so you won’t be forgotten.” I was babbling. I didn’t care. “I won’t forget you, Peter. I’ll remember you.”
“Tell Audrey that I love her, even if I don’t remember why.”
The last car between us was gone. I took a breath and held it. My eyes were fixed on the truck’s tires. They shifted. “Peter!”