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!'
It happened fast.
The truck veered across the temporary line. My feet slammed into the breaks, self-preservation taking control. I stiffened my arm, clenching the wheel and Peter's hand both.
Nick's truck swerved. It loomed before us, the flat panel of the side taking up the entire world. He was trying to get entirely across the lane and miss me. I spun the wheel, teeth gritted and terrified. He was trying to miss me. He was trying to hit the passenger side only.
The truck smashed into us like a wrecking ball. My head jerked forward, and I gasped before the inertia- dampening curse took hold. I couldn't breathe as the air bag hit my face like a wet pillow, hurting. Relief filled me, then guilt that I was safe while Peter. Oh God, Peter…
Heart pounding, I felt as if I was wrapped in muzzy cotton. I couldn't move. I couldn't see. But I could hear. The sound of squealing tires was swallowed by the terrifying shriek of twisting metal. I managed a breath, a ragged gasp in my throat. My stomach lurched, and the world spun as the momentum swung us around.
Pushing at the oil-scented plastic, I forced it away. We were still spinning, and terror shocked through me as the Mack truck plowed into the temporary guardrail and into the empty northbound lanes. Our vehicle shook as we hit something and came to a spine-wrenching halt.
I pushed the bag down, fighting it, shaking, blinking in the sound of nothing. It was smeared with red, and I looked at my hands. They were red. I was bleeding. Blood slicked them where my nails had cut through my palms. Yes, I thought numbly, seeing the gray sky and dark water. That's what the hands of a murderer should look like.
Heat from the engine washed over me, pulled from the breeze on the bridge. Safety glass covered the seat and me. Blinking, I peered out the shattered front window. Peter's side of the truck was smashed into a pylon. There would be no getting him out that way. We had been knocked clean into the empty northbound lane. I could see the islands past Peter and the guardrail they were repairing. Something…something had ripped the hood off Nick's blue truck. I could see the engine, steaming and twisted. Shit, it was almost in the front seat with me along with the front window.
A man was shouting. I could hear people and car doors shutting. I turned to Peter. Oh, hell.
I tried to move, shocked when my foot caught, panicking until I decided it wasn't moving because it was stuck, not because it was broken. It was wedged between the console and the front of the seat. My jeans were turning a wet black from the calf down. I think I had a cut somewhere. My eyes traveled numbly down my leg. It was my calf. I think I'd cut my calf.
'Lady!' a man said as he rushed up to my window, gripping the empty frame with a thick hand, a wedding ring on his finger. 'Lady, are you okay?'
Peachy, I thought, blinking at him. I tried to say something but my mouth wasn't working. An ugly sound came out of me, chilling.
'Don't move. I called the ambulance. I don't think you're supposed to move.' His eyes went to Peter beside me, and he turned away. I heard the sound of retching.
'Peter,' I whispered, my chest hurting. I couldn't breathe deeply, so keeping my breaths shallow, I struggled
