Remember Me *Book 3 Of The Remember the Rules Series*

The Love You Would Die For

(this is also an extra chapter, because I spoil you guys rotten)

Lily didn't make a sound when she fell. 

There was an ear-piercing "No!"  before she left his side for Felix's, before she took a knife for her brother. Before she was bleeding out on the ground. Peter felt the knife in his own chest, foreign and painful in a way that he'd never really experienced until now. For a moment after she fell, there was silence.

It was too quiet. 

Peter stayed still for a nanosecond (a nanosecond too long, he thought grimly) before teleporting over to the knight, whatever his name was. The one they were supposed to have total control over. He ripped the bastard's heart out of his chest.

Interesting, he thought when he first set eyes on it. The pulsing red light was turning blue, killing him slowly on its own. Since she had explicitly ordered him not to act without their say-so, it looked like stabbing Lily was a death sentence in more ways than one. Still, that wasn't enough for Peter. He dug his fingers into the man's heart as deep as they would go before crushing it. The knight's body dropped to the ground, lifeless. 

Someone screamed, and that was enough to break the silence. Peter turned to Arthur, livid. The man flinched. Peter would have called him a coward, but he was smart to be afraid; that was the love of his life bleeding out on the ground, and it was because of this man. He was going to die. 

Lancelot stepped in front of him, hands held out in an attempt to block Peter's path. "We had a truce with Lily. Arthur must survive."

Peter could hear Felix behind him, begging Lily to "stay with me. Come on, look at me sweetie. I'm right here. Stay with me." How on earth Lancelot believed that he could stop Peter from killing Arthur was beyond him. He was gunning for the other knights too; Lancelot might have had more luck convincing him on that issue. 

"Damn your truce, Lancelot," Peter spit out. "I'll kill them all."

Several people seemed to have something to say about that, gathering around Peter and shouting things that he assumed were intended to stop him. The roar was almost deafening until one voice cut through the rest, silencing them instantly. 

"Shut up, goddammit!"  Felix. That was Felix's voice, rising above the din and ringing with power.  

Was that magic? Peter didn't have the time to wonder about it any further.

"Peter..." his voice was quiet, choked up. "She's not breathing."

But she's not dead, Peter thought frantically. Not yet. I would know. I would feel it.

There was still some spark left in Lily. Her heart was still beating; even if Felix couldn't hear it, Peter could feel it. He spun on his heel, Arthur and the rest becoming unimportant within that single instant as he stalked quickly over to their side. The heroes parted before him like the "red sea" in that silly storybook they all seemed to hold in such high esteem, letting him through to her without so much as a token protest. Something told Peter that they were surprised by his restraint, and the fact that he hadn't killed anyone particularly important yet. 

All in due time, he thought, refusing to dwell on thoughts of what might happen if Lily didn't make it. 

She lay on the floor, eyes screwed shut from the memory of pain. Blood matted her hair into clumps, coating the hair pins he'd conjured for her mere moments ago. Her skin was much, much paler than normal. The knife had gone deep.

He put both hands on her chest, stopping the blood with a bit of magic. If he concentrated, he could feel the very, very faint pulse of her heart. It was slow. Too slow. But at least it was there. 

Felix was right, though. She wasn't breathing. "Lily. Breathe, love." Nothing. "If you don't, I promise you'll regret it later." 

Still nothing. If you won't breathe, love, I'll do it for you.

With one hand, he closed her nose. With the other, he opened her mouth. Then he placed his lips on hers, and breathed air and magic into her lungs. 

Come on, love. You're too stubborn to die. Lily, Rosie, hell, even Uri. None of you are that weak. 

Someone behind him screamed in pain. Arthur. 

"I'll end you if you take another step," a woman's accented voice snarled. "I have no allegiance to Camelot, but that girl is my friend." The assassin, Diana. Perhaps she wasn't as terrible at her job as Peter originally thought, though he couldn't see exactly what she was doing. 

He breathed again, pushing oxygen and pure magic into her lungs with a spell that he didn't even remember knowing. How he knew it didn't matter, though. It was his only chance of saving her. There would be blood pooling in her lungs, he knew, and clogging up her sinuses. The undrownable girl would feel as if she were drowning. But as long as her heart was beating, that could all be dealt with later. 

Even when it beat for the last time, he kept breathing, pushing air and magic into her lungs. There was a chance that he wasn't feeling it, that it was still there. There was a chance.

"Peter, stop," Felix finally said, pulling Peter back by force. "You're going to kill yourself if you keep it up. Her heart is... it's too damaged."

Peter fought for a moment before sagging in Felix's hold. He was right.

"But if it's too damaged," Felix said, steel in his voice, "Then we'll just make her a new one." He took Peter's hands and placed one on each of their chests. "Half of yours. Half of mine. How's that for cheating death?"

There wasn't time to come up with a better option. Besides, Peter quite liked the idea of cheating death yet again. In a single motion, he ripped both his heart and Felix's out of his chest. There's still a chance, he thought. 

Each of them too their hearts in their hands and ripped, ignoring the screaming pain that it caused, the urging instinct to stop, keep me whole, keep me whole.

With a sickening crack, their hearts came apart in two pieces each. One half went back into their chests. The others clicked together; not quite a perfect match, but close enough. Close enough to work.

Except that it didn't.

Even when he took out Lily's heart-- red, black, bleeding, but still, still pulsing with the tiniest glimmer of light --and replaced it with the new one, her eyes stayed closed. 

It's because she's still alive, Peter thought. Beyond saving, too hurt to heal, but still alive. Of course it would be her own stubborn will to live that would keep them from saving her life. 

"It's not working," Felix muttered. "Why isn't it working?" 

Peter took a long look at Lily's heart, sitting heavy and warm in his hand. Tiny drips of blood still ran down its sides, pooling in his palm sickeningly. 

"She has to die," he realized. It physically hurt for him to eve think it, let alone say it, but the fact that he did say it meant that it had to be true. She has to die before I can save her. 

Of course Felix understood him instantly, just like he always had. That didn't seem to make it any easier for either one of them to accept. If it came down to which one of them would have to do it, the choice was obvious; Peter wasn't capable of hurting her, not really. It went against everything True Love magic stood for. Felix would have to kill Lily if she was going to live. 

In that moment, nothing else in the world existed. The crowd around them vanished, the heroes huddled nearby, even Thomas, the boy that Felix had taken such a liking to. Everyone but the three of them, Peter, Felix, and Lily, disappeared. Peter gave the heart to Felix, who took it with shaky hands. 

Carefully, with more gentleness than Peter possessed in his entire being, Felix crushed his sister's heart to dust.

   

   

   

*keeps fuckin running* MURDER IS STILL ILLEGAL GUYS.