Saphora: vol.1 Retention (The Athena Universe) Read Online Free PDF

itself into them. The time seemed to expand and move so much slower, because she saw it all. From under her arms, she watched the ground beneath her pulsate and indent into the ground, almost like a ripple. And as she panicked, her breathing quick even in this slow-motion vision, she watched as the tree trunk as it was slung forward over her and into Tebias. The bullet Tebias had fired had gone into the trunk of the tree as it hit him, and sent him hurling into the ground under it. She lifted her head with wide eyes and watched him fly alongside the tree while his weapon was knocked into the air and out of sight.
    And then time picked up, and everything landed with a ground -shaking thud. She seemed to be gasping for air when it was all over. She watched as the tree rolled to a stop, the leaves shaking subtly. She looked around at the other half of the tree, which was now beginning to fall down on her at a rather quick pace. She lifted her hands above her head, looking up at it in horror, and then in disbelief when it stopped in midair, almost like it was floating. She blinked, and stared, before even considering moving her hands, in fear that if she did, the seemingly magical tree would then continue to fall. But with a sudden knowledge of what she was doing, or an involuntarily jerk of her shaking body, she did just that. She shifted her hands to the left, and the tree followed, falling onto the ground. She huffed out a nervous laugh and looked down at her trembling hands in awe. I did that? she thought. The tree … Did I just move a tree?! And then another realization hit her, once again. She had just seen Tebias. Tebias . His name was Tebias, and he was real. But with what had just happened … She looked over at the rummage of the one half of the tree trunk that had fallen, slammed up against another tree with what she knew to be Tebias under it. Had she just killed someone? Her chest heaved at the thought, and she felt her knees go weak for a moment. Even though the man had just tried to kill her, she may have just killed someone. Her body shook as her mind started to pick up in speed during her thought process. She started to panic. What would she do?
    “Oh my god … He’s real. He’ s real, and he’s dead,” she said to herself in a shaky voice, as she began to move her feet. In fear that if she didn’t, they would give in on her. Suddenly her world was thrust into action. She’d waited all this time for some kind of contact with her past, and now she was getting it – physically. He was just in front of her. Talking to her. Threatening her. Her head spun as she tried to recover from the impact with the brick wall of reality. For the first time, without paranoia behind it, she felt fear. Actual, logical fear. Her hands fumbled for her back pocket, aiming to take out her phone so that she could call Fran. But she stopped herself when she heard movement from the branch that had been tossed. Her body froze as her head slowly turned in its direction. It rocked, ever so slightly, stabbing Saphora’s heart with a surge of fear, before slipping from the angle it was leaning at on another tree, and falling to the ground with a loud, earth-shaking thud. With eyes that seemed to be caught in headlights, she stared at the tree, watching, and anticipating any sudden movements from it. There were none in the next immediate moments. But she didn’t want to stick around to see if there would be any in the near future. If Tebias was alive, she wanted to be as far away as she could before he came to.
    Making the wise decision to leave, Saphora took off in the direction that would take her towards the zoo, where Fran worked – or so she thought. She didn’t want to go home – not where she would be alone for the next several hours. She wanted to be in a crowd. She wanted to be somewhere she could hide, where if she was found again, it would be harder to get a hold of her. But more than anything, she wanted to feel the