Goddess Sacrifice

by M. W. Muse

  Legacy backed away as if she were avoiding an attack. “Impossible,” she barely whispered. She was too shocked to cry at this point.

  “It’s not impossible, Legacy. If you stay with Adin, you’re going to kill him. You already tried.”

  “What are you talking about?” she screamed, and thunder sounded. She cried uncontrollably now.

  “His car accident was your fault.”

  “No! There were snakes in the other car. Medusa did that.”

  “We don’t know that for sure. If there were snakes in the other car, Medusa just did that to ensure the accident would happen.”

  “Then it was Medusa’s fault!”

  “No, Legacy. Were you upset about something before the accident?”

  “Y-yes,” she said timidly.

  Lissa nodded as if she already knew the answer. “You cried so much that the ground was flooded. Adin left early in the morning, and the rainwater that you caused froze. Adin and the other driver hit patches of ice.”

  “Nooo.” She cried.

  “You hurt yourself over the summer, and now, you hurt Adin. I told you, you have to learn how to deal with your emotions.”

  “I-I know. I’ve been trying. I’ll do better. I will. I love Adin. I want to be with him.”

  “What you want and what you need are two different things now.”

  She shut her eyes and shook her head. What Lissa just said was very similar to the line from her dream.

  When she opened her eyes, tears flowed as she stared at Lissa. “So what you’re telling me is I have to break up with Adin?”

  “That’s your choice, Legacy. If you want Adin to live a long life, he’s going to have to live it without you. I just don’t see how you’d be able to live with yourself knowing that you’re the reason he died,” she muttered.

  “We have our freewill. We don’t know that this will happen,” she said frantically.

  “I know. That’s why I said it was your choice, but I think this is the meaning behind the prophecy.”

  “What?”

  “The oracle said you will be with River as long as Adin stays alive. I think you’re going to choose to let go of Adin so that he stays alive. That only leaves River and Hades. Hades might think he’s an option for you, but he’s not. So that really only leaves River. ‘There is no other road for you to take, no other path that will suffice. It is your legacy you must make, once you accept your sacrifice.’ This is what your mother said, Legacy. I believe giving up Adin is your sacrifice.”

  “No!” she screamed at her. She could not, would not accept this.

  She ran upstairs to her bedroom and curled up on the floor as she cried. There had to be another way. They just had to be very careful. If they watched out for Adin, then he’d be okay. She cried for hours as she contemplated how to keep Adin safe while they stayed together.

  But as she thought about everything, she realized that there was no watching out for Adin. He was mortal, and she was dangerous. She never dreamed that she could cause him any physical or emotional harm. If she hadn’t caused his accident, then maybe she would still believe that. But now she knew she could hurt him without her conscious effort. If she loved him, then she’d have to do whatever she could to protect him.

  And she did love him, so that meant only one solution.

  A broken heart.

  Chapter Twelve

  Legacy cried all night, thinking how she’d be able to get through the conversation that she never expected she’d have to make. When she did sleep, she had the same dream, so she didn’t feel rested when she got up the next morning.

  Adin had already made plans to come over today, so there wasn’t anything for her to do but sit and wait. Wait for the demise of her relationship with him. As she thought about that, she cried. She didn’t want to start crying before he got here, but there just wasn’t anything she could do about it. She loved him more than anything. She wanted to be with him forever. But if she was with him, his forever would be limited to a matter of months, if that.

  She knew she had to stay strong for Adin, but she still had no idea how she’d be able to get through this.

  Lissa had left early this morning after making up a pitiful excuse to leave the house so Legacy would have the privacy she needed to break Adin’s heart. Hers was already broken.

  When she heard Adin’s familiar three soft knocks on the door, tears streamed down her face. She knew when he saw her, there’d be no easing into this topic.

  She slowly walked to the door and took a deep breath through shaky lips as she placed her hand on the doorknob. She looked at her feet and opened the door.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Adin said, kissing the top of her head and stepping into the house. “What do you want to do today? I was thinking we could take a drive up to the mountains. I know it’s almost winter, but the leaves are still on the trees up there, and the colors are so beautiful,” he said, turning around to face her.

  She slowly looked up at him, and he gasped. “Legacy, what’s wrong?” He stepped over to her and put his arms around her.

  She slid out of his arms and turned around, walking up the stairs and not saying anything. Stay strong.

  “Legacy?” Adin asked, following behind her.

  When they got into her room, he shut the door.

  “We have to talk,” she whispered.

  “I can see that. Do you want to go somewhere else to talk? We can go to our picnic spot.”

  She started to sob. He was trying to ease her pain without knowing why she was even in agony. And he wanted to go to their private spot—the spot where he took her on their first date, where he told her he loved her, where she told him about her true abilities.

  “Sweetheart, you’re scaring me,” he whispered as he stepped closer to her.

  She shook her head, stepping away from him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as his eyebrows furrowed.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through trembling lips. Then she cleared her throat. “You, um…no.” She shook her head. That wasn’t the right way to start. “Er, I don’t think…” She exhaled heavily, shaking her head. That wouldn’t have come out right either. She needed to stop stalling and get this out. She was doing this for Adin. She loved him. She knew she would always love him, so she needed to do whatever she could to protect him—no matter how much it hurt. She took another deep breath and looked into his eyes. “We can’t be together anymore.”

  Adin’s face froze. “What?” he whispered without moving his lips.

  “We’re too different, and umm…” She started to cry again.

  “Legacy!” He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “Er, I, ummm…” She should have thought this through! She couldn’t tell him the truth, but she’d been so wrapped up in her own depressed state that she hadn’t thought of a good enough excuse—not that he would think any excuse was good enough.

  “Sweetheart?” he whispered, walking toward her.

  She put her hand up to stop him. “Don’t. Please.”

  Adin’s breath caught as the reality of the situation started to sink in. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s not smart for us to be together right now.”

  “Legacy, we’re both doing really well with our unwanted bonds,” he said frantically, eyes turning red.

  “Um, I need to focus on my change.”

  He started crying. “I can help you with that.”

  When he started crying, she cried harder, covering her face. “I-I know.”

  He walked quickly over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Then what’s the problem, sweetheart?”

  Feeling his hands on her felt so good. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him. She didn’t know when or if she’d ever feel his touch again after today and realizing that made her hysterical.

  He squeezed his arms tighter around her, and she could feel his heart crashing in his chest. She couldn’t confuse him like
this. She needed to be strong on her own.

  She pushed him away from her. “Stop it!”

  Adin’s mouth fell open, and he stared at her like she was speaking a different language. “Sweetheart, I don’t understand,” he whispered as his tears leaked over.

  “It’s over.”

  He shook his head quickly, staring at her.

  She shut her eyes and tried to take slow breaths. “Maybe you should go.”

  “No!” Adin roared, and she opened her eyes to stare at him. “Not until you explain to me what’s going on.”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” she whispered.

  “The hell there isn’t! Something happened. When I talked to you yesterday, you were fine, and now you want to break up with me.” His voice cracked.

  “I don’t want—”

  Adin’s eyes popped open. “You don’t want to what?” he whispered quickly.

  She shook her head.

  “You don’t want to break up with me. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?

  She shook her head slowly as her breathing hitched.

  He walked back over to her and put his arms around her. “Then don’t.”

  “It’s not that s-s-simple.”

  He put his hands on her cheeks and pulled her head up to look at him. “It is that simple. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Let’s figure this out together.”

  She couldn’t do that. If she told him that she would kill him, he’d figure out a way to downplay it somehow. She shook her head and cried. “We can’t.”

  He leaned his forehead against hers and cried. “I love you, and you love me.”

  She shook her head. “Adin—”

  “Don’t shake your head. I know you do. Say it, Legacy. Tell me that you l-love me.”

  “I love you,” she breathed.

  He wrapped his arms around her again. “Let me help with whatever’s bothering you.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Is this because of what happened with Venus? I-I thought you forgave me for that,” he whispered, squeezing her tightly.

  “I did.” But maybe he would accept this as an excuse for the break up. “But I can’t live with the heartache of your bond getting stronger.” This wasn’t a lie. She knew that it was inevitable, and she’d gotten upset because Venus kissed Adin. It was that emotional state that caused the rain that froze on the ground and caused his accident. Her being here was what threw off her course, so his bond with her was a valid reason for this break up. He got hurt because of her feelings over his bond. She could have already killed him.

  “Please, sweetheart, I’d never allow anything to ever happen with her.”

  “You already did,” she whispered as she pulled away from him.

  “I’ll stay away from her. I won’t let her get within twenty feet of me. I’ll never talk to her again.”

  She turned around to face him. “You can’t do that. You have classes with her.”

  “I can move away,” Adin said quickly, walking back to her. “The semester will be over in a few weeks. I, umm, I can move in with my dad and go to school out there. I don’t want to be away from you, but we can have a long distance relationship until you graduate. Then we can both move away and go to school somewhere else next year.”

  “She’ll find you, Adin. She already did.” She looked away from him as she folded her arms across her chest. This angle didn’t feel very believable.

  “You’re not doing this because of her.”

  “She’s just one of many reasons,” she muttered as tears streaked down her face.

  He looked down and started crying again. Then he reached over and took her hand into his. Her breath caught when he touched her, and she shut her eyes. She felt Adin place her hand against his chest. His heart was beating erratically. He held his hand on top of hers and rubbed his other one along her arm as he cried.

  “My heart is h-hurting,” he whispered. “You’re trying to rip your heart away from me. It doesn’t want to g-go, and I-I don’t want to let it go.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” she whispered without looking at him.

  “Please, Legacy. I can’t bear the thought of never being near you again.” He cried as he clung to her arm, stepping closer. “Of never talking, laughing, crying with you…t-touching you…holding you in my arms…watching you fall asleep.” Adin sobbed uncontrollably for several seconds. “I-I can’t breathe without you.”

  She covered her face with her free hand and cried. She slipped her hand away from him and walked to the window. She slid down the wall and covered her face.

  After a couple of minutes, she heard Adin take a deep breath and walk over to her. He slumped to the floor beside her and wrapped his arms around her. “Please tell me what’s going on,” he whispered into her ear.

  His breath made her shiver, and she heard him gasp. He rubbed his cheek against hers, and she tried to catch her breath.

  He slowly slid his cheek down until his lips were beside hers. She turned her head slightly toward him out of habit. Maybe it wasn’t habit, but she felt better believing that was why she encouraged him.

  Adin rubbed his lips against hers, taking jagged breaths. Then he kissed her softly.

  She told herself he needed this goodbye kiss—that they both needed it. She leaned closer to him, and he slid his hands into her hair, kissing her more eagerly.

  She slid her hands up around his neck, pulling him closer to her, kissing him back with an enormous sense of urgency. He kissed her just as fervently as they both breathed jaggedly.

  But she knew this had to end, so she needed to stop this before she forgot what she was trying to do.

  She slowly pulled away from him, but he wasn’t having that. He kept his fingers in her hair and put his forehead against hers, not allowing any space between them.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered.

  Adin cried, shaking his head against hers. “I-I’m not leaving, not until you explain to me why you’re doing this.”

  “I want you to go.”

  He cried harder. “Legacy, if I leave, then I know it’s over. I-I can’t accept that. How can it be over between us?”

  “Because it just is,” she whispered as she stood up. He stayed slumped on the floor, but he wrapped his arms around her legs and cried.

  She lost what little grip she had and started to cry again. “Please, s-stop making this so h-hard for me,” she begged.

  He shook his head against her legs. “No,” he murmured. “You don’t want this. I don’t want this.”

  “What we want to do and what we need to do are two different things,” she whispered, trying to comfort him, but his head shot up.

  Adin jumped to his feet. “Your dreams. You just said the line from your dreams.”

  She tried not to gasp, but she knew he was right. She knew that Lissa said it similarly earlier, so maybe that was why Legacy said it just now.

  “You’ve been dreaming about your change, so what’s going on right now has to do with your change. Your subconscious knew you would be breaking up with me for some reason. What’s going on?”

  “I, er, it doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head. She couldn’t tell him that she would kill him. It was bad enough that she had to break his heart.

  “Please, Legacy. We’ve worked through so much together. Please don’t shut me out now.”

  She was losing ground, so she had to chance course. She needed to detach herself from her emotions. Being emotional was too confusing for him. She looked down and took a deep breath. When she looked back up, she glared at Adin through narrowed eyes.

  But she couldn’t glare long—his swollen, red eyes pleaded with her to open up. She sighed as she looked away from him. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than she absolutely had to, but he wouldn’t leave, and she couldn’t explain the real reason why she had to do this. If he wasn’t going to leave, then maybe she didn’t have a choice about hurting him more. She was already torturing hi
m anyway.

  She walked over to her corkboard and started taking down his pictures. She heard him move, but he didn’t come over to her. She figured he was walking toward the door, but then she heard her mattress squeak. She turned around, and he was sitting on her bed with his hands on his face, trying not to cry as he watched her take down their memories.

  She didn’t look at him as she walked over to the trashcan and threw them away. Then she walked over to the two vases of dried roses that Adin had given her on their first date. She ripped them out and threw them in the trash too. Her gaze flashed around her room and saw the conch shell on her nightstand that Adin had brought back from his trip to Florida. She walked over and picked it up while Adin’s eyes stayed locked onto her. She dropped it into the trash on top of the dead flowers. She scanned the room again and didn’t see anything else. When she put her hands on her hips and looked down to ready herself to talk again, she saw her wrist…and her watch.

  The beautiful watch Adin had specially made for her had been on her wrist every single day since he had given it to her. She loved this watch. He put so much thought and time into giving her the perfect birthday present. As she thought about that, she lifted her hand and stared at it.

  Adin’s breath caught, and her eyes flashed over to him. He was shaking his head, his hands still over his mouth.

  She started taking off the watch and felt new tears forming in her eyes. He stood up and stepped over to her.

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  She took off the watch and held it up for him to take.

  “It’s yours,” he murmured.

  She grit her teeth. “You told me you’d take it back if it made me uncomfortable.” She paused, staring at him, at his pale blue eyes, wet lashes, tear-streaked face. “It makes me uncomfortable,” she lied.

  He sighed. It looked like he was reaching for the watch, but he put his hand around hers instead. “You don’t have to wear it,” he whispered. “Please just keep it.”

  She pulled her hand away from his and stepped over to her opened jewelry box. She tossed the watch in and slammed it shut. Then she folded her arms while she turned around to face him. “I think that’s everything,” she whispered, trying to sound detached, but not doing a very good job of it.