Saphora: vol.1 Retention (The Athena Universe)

by Jaz Johnson

  Maverick’s mouth had fallen agape about half way through her speech, just from the pure shock of her speaking to him of her own free will. He blinked a few times, trying to force his brain to come up with words to respond with. There were small grunts, little pants of breath, but no noises. That is until he awkwardly forced himself to clear his throat. Saphora moved her head back some as he nodded, shoving the rag in his pocket. He had hardly even heard most of what she said, aside from her name and the general idea that she had come to talk to him.

  “Okay,” he said, sounding as if he were equally out of breath.

  Saphora half nodded, looking into his eyes to try and see if he was making fun of her. But what she saw confused her. He looked like he was in shock. Was he scared? She didn’t know. She glanced over his body language skeptically before making eye contact again.

  “Okay? You’re going to talk to me?” she asked, making sure. He nodded, his blinking seemingly having stopped all together.

  “I’m going to talk to you,” he repeated, almost in a trance.

  Her eyes seemed to wince as he spoke, sounding like some sort of zombie. She had thought this guy was creepy before. But now, she was starting to question herself for coming to the café, and wondering just what type of guy he was. Though at the moment he seemed harmless – in a really creepy way, she did remember the Monday after noon he had tried to talk to her. Even though it didn’t end as well as he may have hoped, which was more due to the emotions she had brought to the café, the conversation had started out quite generous. She glanced around the café, and once again saw eyes on her. They weren’t as judgmental as they were curious to the situation. And as always, curious about her. There was one pair of judgmental eyes, however. And they were coming from Liz, who was standing behind the counter with her arms crossed. She was staring intensely at Saphora, and Saphora quickly averted her eyes when meeting with hers.

  “Can … you not talk to me here?” Saphora asked sheepishly.

  She felt a bit humiliated by it, actually. She was not one to ask anyone for help. Even Fran. She had usually insisted on taking care of her own problems. But lately, she had become so hopeless. And she felt it. And not only that, but she seemed to be losing control of the things she was able to do. Flying, and whatever had taken place in the woods with, real or not real, Tebias. It had happened again, or at least something similar, in the car with Officer Roland. Luckily, no one was hurt. But she had a feeling that the lack of control in her own emotions was somehow tied to the new abilities she was discovering in herself. She had to find a way to calm down. And with Fran no doubt out looking for her again, she needed somewhere that was safe from her eyes. But more importantly – she did need someone’s help. She knew she couldn’t calm herself down to the level that she needed on her own. And without Fran to talk to, it would only be a matter of time before she actually went insane. This guy was the only other vent she could think of. And Saphora needed anything and anyone she could find that was willing to genuinely help.

  Maverick’s eyes darted about after realizing that she wanted to talk to him elsewhere. He was almost a little too eager to go anywhere with her. He spun around to look at the observant Liz, who was still leaning against the sink’s counter with her arms crossed. Her fingers were drumming against her bent arm. Her gum popped when she made eye contact with him, and her brows shot up. She had been listening to their conversation and she gave him a look which read disbelief. He spun back around to face Saphora, who was still looking at him and waiting for his answer. His hands rose, bringing her attention to them as he gestured for her to stay where she was.

  “Just, uh, wait a minute. Okay?” he said before rushing off towards Liz. Saphora, blinking, watched a little caught off guard at his sudden leaving the conversation. She looked around, actually feeling a little uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to putting herself out there. Her body shifted awkwardly before she made the very conscious decision to sit down at the booth she was standing beside. She kept to herself as Maverick went to go talk with Liz. But she seemed to turn away from him the moment he approached her. He was speaking barely above a whisper, compared to her very audible responses.

  “Are you kidding me? What – no!” she shouted.

  Maverick pleaded for her to keep her voice down as the remaining customers in the café turned their attention to their conversation. Maverick tried to get her to go into the kitchen to continue talking, but Liz’s attitude had awoken. Maverick had the nerve to be “disrespectful” to her the entire night, not wanting to engage in any of her conversations. And now he wanted to leave the café to be with some crazy woman? Liz was not only furious, but she was fuming with envy as well. She was being turned down for some psycho, and her ego had taken a significant drop.

  “You can’t just leave, Maverick. You’re supposed to close with me! How am I supposed to close by myself?” Liz raged to a pleading Maverick. He urged her to lower her voice but Liz wasn’t going to have that. Not without compensation. The heated conversation continued until Maverick was forced to offer her a deal. A favor. Liz quickly turned down the volume when he brought up owing her a favor. And she was quick to take it.

  Maverick almost immediately left Liz’s side after making the deal with what felt like the devil. He rushed over to Saphora, nearly tripping in the process, and sat down with her in the booth that he was just cleaning.

  “Sorry about that,” he breathed, settling in the seat. Saphora gave a broken nod, no longer making the effort to keep eye contact with him. She felt a bit guilty now, having somewhat overheard the conversation that had taken place. As much she needed someone to talk to, she really didn’t want to get the poor guy in trouble. She wasn’t that selfish.

  “It’s okay … Hey … I don’t want you to get in trouble or anything …” she said, rethinking taking him away from his work. And then she thought about what had just occurred to her. How she was furious at Fran for being at her job when she was at the police station. She felt another twinge of guilt that she had been so ready to unleash her pent up anger upon Fran. It wasn’t her fault that she had to work. After missing the past two days to stay home with her and nurse her back to health.

  Maverick shook his head, leaning forward on the table to be a little closer to her.

  “No, no. Don’t worry about it. Really, it’s fine,” he said, not wanting her to leave because she felt bad for what he had to do. He was more than happy to do it. To get a shot at talking to her. Saphora tried for a grin as she nodded, glad that at least if he was going to get in trouble, that he was okay with it.

  “Right …”

  There was a little bit of an awkward silence between them before Maverick cleared his throat and made a few gestures with his hands.

  “So … uh. If you want to leave, we can,” he offered, glancing at the door to the café. Saphora nodded, as if caught off guard. She had forgotten that she asked for them to move to another area to talk. She exhaled, putting her hands on her thighs and looking back towards the door momentarily.

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’d be great.”

  Maverick paused, and waited for her to tell him where she wanted to go. But instead, she did just the opposite. She looked up at him with raised eyebrows and waited. His expression mimicked hers and he spoke up instinctively.

  “What?”

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked, with a slight shake of her head, as if it were obviously his job to lead the way, when she was the one that had arrived out of the blue.

  “Oh – uh – you want me to take you somewhere?” he asked a little louder than he should have. He could hear Liz’s petite groan from behind the counter. Maverick fought the urge to turn around and kept his eyes on Saphora, who despite his efforts, did sneak a look at Liz.

  “Yes … I don’t know where else to go, I told you,” she said harshly. She didn’t like to repeat herself. Especially on grim topics. It, particularly this, made her sound pathetic. Maverick nodded apologe
tically and darted his eyes about as he thought of where to go. He blew out air as he decided to think about the destination once they were in his car. He wanted to get the conversation away from the eavesdropping ears of Liz.

  “Oh, right. Right, sorry. Okay, uh – so let’s go to my car?” he said a little unsure.

  Saphora nodded, and began to get up from the booth, surprising Maverick. He had half expected her so say no, slap him, and storm out. But she rose, and headed towards the front door without him. It took a moment for him to react to what was happening. His body shot up out of the seat, hitting his leg against the table in the process and creating a noisy bustle. He hurried after Saphora and rushed to get the door for her. He didn’t even bother to clock out for the night, nor did he take the time to remove his work apron. He stayed quiet as he led her to his well-kept black Camaro. He didn’t want to ramble at her about what he had been thinking for the past two and a half days. And he also didn’t want to bombard her with questions that would send her running like it did last time. If he had to stay quiet the entire time to keep her interested in talking, then he would.

  He opened the door for her, waiting for her to slide into the passenger seat before he closed it behind her and made his way to driver’s side. He could feel his nerves beginning to stand on edge at the anticipation of being seated next to her at such a close distance. When he closed the door behind himself, he was immediately over whelmed with the strong scent of lavender. But also, something else. It was a slight musk of salt. Salt water. He wrinkled his nose a bit, and glanced over at her as he put on his seatbelt. She was looking straight forward. But even as she was, he could see the very slight redness in her eyes. Even with the own colour of her eyes being a ruby colour, he could tell that that was a discoloration. One that he hadn’t noticed when he was standing right in front of her. But now, thanks to the addition of a few senses, he did. And it tugged on a few strings. He hadn’t noticed that he was staring for an unusual amount of time until she turned to look at him. His body tensed as he foolishly tried to make it seem as if he wasn’t. But the failure was so obvious that he stopped half way through and sighed, resting one hand on the steering wheel.

  “So where are we going?” she asked, trying to ignore the fact that he had been staring at her.

  “Uh, right. Well … do you want to be inside or outside?” he asked. It seemed like a simple question. Though he was too late to realize the stupidity of it. He hadn’t thought of the weather, which was about to worsen. And Saphora spoke up, before he had the chance to correct himself.

  “It’s going to rain.”

  “Right, right. Sorry. Inside, of course. Uh … we could go to my house?” he offered as his heart stopped.

  “No,” Saphora answered sharply. “I want to talk, not have sex with you,” she said rather bluntly. Almost immediately realizing the bluntness of his offer, the blood rushed to his face to showcase his embarrassment. His hands went flying up, shaking as he once again stammered over his words.

  “Oh – no, I didn’t think that – I know you don’t – I just – I don’t know where else we would go to talk alone inside,” he said, trying to justify his words. Saphora looked down and away from him. He thought because she was disappointed and was rethinking her decision. But really she was silently acknowledging his reasons. Maverick quickly offered another suggestion. “Uh, there’s this – old abandoned house up on-“

  “No,” Saphora said sharply again. “I can’t go there … We can just … I’ll go to your house,” she said, feeling a bit defeated. He hesitated to answer, watching as she turned to face the glass of the passenger window. He could tell that she was uncomfortable with going to his house. He didn’t want to take her anywhere that she was uncomfortable with, and he could see the desperation she had to talk to him. So he thought about any other places he could take her.

  “Uh, alright …” he said, with a sigh as he started the engine of the car. She was quiet as they left the parking lot, the atmosphere in the car having become rather thick with awkward tension. As they drove off, Liz stood at the front of the café, arms crossed, and fingers drumming.

  Chapter 7

  “What are you doing?” Saphora asked, as they pulled into a parking lot unfamiliar to her.

  Granted, the driveway to his house would have been unfamiliar to her too. But this was not a residential home. It was a commercial building, and one she had never seen before in town. She had spaced out on and off during the car ride, and now she was up and alert, realizing that she was at an unknown place with an unknown man. Granted, she had the means to defend herself, if not kill him all together, but the realization was still enough to wake her up. Maverick smiled as he pulled into an available parking space.

  “It’s just an old book store near my apartment. We can go in, if you want to. Or we can talk here in the car,” he offered, resting his hands in his lap. She stared at him for a moment, genuinely appreciating that he hadn’t brought her to his apartment, or to a crowded location. The in-betweens of that she knew must be scarce, but he was able to manage. However, she knew that if she were to get emotional while talking, she would become loud. And she didn’t want to do that in the calm atmosphere of the book store. She also didn’t want to be any more of a burden to this guy, already having dragged him out of work to talk with her. So she decided to stay in the car to talk.

  “We can stay here … I don’t mind,” she said, taking off her seat belt and letting it cling against the door.

  “Okay,” he said almost too quickly.

  He did the same with his seat belt, trying to mask the goofy smile that had crept onto his face. Hearing that she’d rather stay alone in a car with him instead of going inside gave him the idea of, well, he didn’t exactly know, but it was making him as gitty as a school girl, and he was trying his best to hide it. He turned slightly, so that he could more easily look at Saphora during the conversations, but Saphora stayed, more or less, facing forward. There was an awkward silence before Saphora turned to look at him.

  “You should … Probably introduce yourself,” she suggested, even though his name tag was on his apron.

  “Oh, right. Uh – Maverick. My name is Maverick. Sorry … I should’ve, uh, said that back at the café.”

  “About the café. You’re not … going to get in trouble, are you?” Saphora asked, making more of an effort to face Maverick. He shook his head, smiling and dismissing the concern with his hand.

  “Don’t worry about that. I only had like an hour left anyway. I just made a deal with the girl that was there,” he said with somewhat of a grimace. He smiled again, refocusing on Saphora. “So what did you want to talk about?”

  Saphora stayed quiet, thinking about that. And then she was suddenly dumbfounded, and frustrated with herself all at once. What was she thinking? She couldn’t possibly talk about everything that had happened as if it were a casual conversation. About her ability to fly and her fear of falling that had been made a reality. About meeting a man who claimed to be her hunter, and proceeded with actions that justified his claim. About being a suspect of a man’s death. A man that had run her over with his car. A hit that she survived. About her disconnecting with Fran, a woman who she trusted and loved. Or about thinking about her therapist conspiring against her. Trying to make her seem crazy. Even though she had divulged a brief summary of her life to him at the café, she couldn’t possibly go into detail about everything.

  She found herself hesitating to answer the question. So what now? Now that she had dragged this poor man out from his work to talk about nothing. She groaned, and decided to just … talk.

  “Oh, I uh … I don’t know, really,” she said with a little bit of a nervous laugh. “I was,” she sighed, shaking her head and looking down. “really stressed out. But, I don’t really want to talk about that anymore,” she looked back up at Maverick, who was starting to frown, thinking that she was going to ask him to leave. “How about you just say what you were going to say to me on
Monday?” she offered, leaning back in her seat with a look that registered in Maverick’s mind as regret.

  He paused, internally arguing with himself. He wanted to jump at the opportunity to ask her all the questions he had thought up since then. But when he looked at her face. And her pent up expression, he seemed to question himself. He wanted to see her at ease. Even though she said that she didn’t want to talk about it, he knew better. With that ambush of information she had said to him back at the café, he knew that something, if not those things, was eating at her. And for her to come back to the café and find him, of all people. Someone who she did not know, and after the incident, probably had no intention of knowing. He knew that she must have been desperate to talk to someone about what was going on. She was probably just scared of what he would think. About what he would say. About how he would judge her.

  “You know … I’m not gonna judge you or anything,” he started, making a gesture with his hand. Saphora looked up at him with a silent request for an explanation. “For anything you want to talk about, I mean. I mean, you came in talking about police and something … It’s okay if you want to talk about that.”

  She stared at him for a minute, almost caught off guard. Her eyes narrowed as she spoke.

  “That day. Didn’t you come over to talk to me because you found me attractive?” she asked rather bluntly. Maverick’s eyes widened as the conversation turned.

  “I – no! I mean – yes you’re attractive, but … I didn’t – uh, I … I wasn’t going to do anything,” he said, averting his eyes as he felt the blood rush to his cheeks. “Talk to you. I was going to talk to you.”

  “Yeah? About what?”