After a minute or two, once I’m partially satisfied, I let him pull his face from mine, panting.
“Julian!” he shouts, glaring up at me. “What the hell is happening? What do youmeanby a sacrifice? Surely you don’t mean—”
“I love you,” I blurt, dragging my fingertips over the small of his back, under his shirt. Atlas’s mouth falls open. “I love you so much that I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realize it.”
Something dawns on Atlas, his eyes narrowing as he grips me even harder.
“No,” he demands. “No, Julian. Whatever you’re thinking of doing,no.”
“I just needed you to know,” I tell him. “I needed you to know that I love you too.”
With one final kiss to his forehead, I shove Atlas away from me, sprinting out the door.
The chain is firmly in place by the time his fists hit the hardwood. My forehead takes in each vibration from where it rests, and I let each scream, each cry wash over me.
“Julian!” Atlas yells. “Don’t do this! Don’t leave me!”
He’s crying so desperately that my heart is shattering, even as I know I’m doing this for him. To save him.
“I’m sorry, sweet boy,” I say, placing my hand against the door as if I can reach him through it. “I’ll still be with you. In some way or another, I’llalwaysbe with you.”
“No!God, no!”
But I’m already sprinting down the stairs, then the main staircase, and out the back doors.
By the time I’m standing at the cliffside, my heart is pounding, and I’m panting as if I’ve run a mile. I can no longer hear Atlas’s cries, but I know he’s still up there, screaming and pleading.
But soon he will be free, and that is all that matters.
As I look below, into the violent, crashing waves, the prophecy circles my mind.
“In the violence of the waves, a cure will appear.
From purity and truth, salvation is born.
The boy the incubus keeps will continue to suffer
until the stipulations are met.
Wrongs must be righted; balance must be restored.
Only then can light prosper again.”
Just as Madam Lu said, for the curse to break, for the stipulations to be met, action needs to be taken. Love is the answer. Balance must be restored.
A wrong must be righted.
The life of a Chastain’s loved one was saved, so to restore the balance between life and death, the life of a Chastain’s loved one must be sacrificed.
A soul must be given to account for the one that death spared.
In the violence of the waves, the cure will appear. Sacrificing my life, as the one who is loved by and loves Atlas Chastain, to the waves below, should cure him. He should be free.
It was never a magic potion that would float in from the horizon, all due to his diligence with prayer.
It was a love so pure it overcame death.
And sure, it doesn’t have to be me. I am not special; I am not the missing puzzle piece. I am just someone who loves him—and there are plenty who do.