Free Empyreal: Awaken - Book One by Christal M. Mosley

and
readings aside from her leisure.
    She moved from her desk chair, as she
saw the dark figure shift along the rooftop once again.
    Impossible , she thought, I'm
on the third floor of the house...
    She started to call out to her parents
when, suddenly, she caught a glimpse of something familiar in the
shadowed figure. She walked over to the old-fashioned, plantation
shutter-style, paned window and pushed it open. “What are you doing
here?”
    “Would you believe that I've taken up
the sport of roof-jumping...” Court asked, moving closer, across
the roof line in front of her window.
    “Nice try...” she said, taking a seat
on the window seat.
    “I wanted to see you ... or rather, I
needed to see you...”
    “Such a fine line between the
two...”
    “Such truth in your words … but, I
also wanted ask you something...”
    “Ask me something? You know, you
could've just called ... risking your life on a rooftop is highly
over-rated...” she said, with a chuckle.
    She noticed something in the way he
looked at her...
    Rooftop ... the word trailed
silently through her mind. It resonated and hovered in her psyche.
The word seemed to trigger a memory of some sort, but she shook it
from her consciousness. “So, what? What exactly did you need to ask
me?”
    Court stood, staring at Coralie with
no words to speak of.
    “Court?”
    “Oh, I'm sorry ... I've lost all
musing ability ... I tend to lose myself around you … but you do
that to me, Coralie ... all of the time...” Court confessed. “My
thoughts are completely consumed with you...”
    Coralie's cheeks blushed a deep shade
of red, but she could not contain the smile from brushing across
her lips.
    “I know that you said that you can't
go out anywhere tonight, but do you think that you may could take a
short break and come out here ... with me, on the roof?”
    “Out there ... on my roof? Did I
mention my thoughts on rooftop dangers?” she asked, stopping to,
again, shake away the thought of what the word r ooftop actually meant ... the thought of what significance it might
hold.
    “Yeah, I think you mentioned something
like that … Come on, it's a beautiful night...” he said, extending
his hand.
    “Okay, Rooftop Casanova ... but I
still have a paper to write ... so just a short break...” she said,
giving in, taking his hand.
    “This will be the shortest break in
the history of all breaks ... I promise...” he said, with a
smile.
    Coralie stood upright outside of her
window and looked around. The vast darkness surrounding them was
lit up by millions of twinkling stars above. The moon that hung
overhead shone bright across their faces.
    Coralie looked over at Court, he was
staring at her with intense eyes, wistfully.
    “Court, can I ask you a question?”
Coralie asked, breaching the quietness of the night.
    “Go ahead … Shoot...” he said,
encouraging her to continue.
    “What's like in Greece?”
    “Greece, huh? You've never
been?”
    “Well, if you look at my passport, it
seems that I've been almost everywhere … in fact, it says that I’ve
been to Greece seven times. So, yes, I've been … I’ve been with my
parents. I used to travel with them a lot.”
    “Sounds pretty great...”
    “Yeah, it does … it sounds great,
right...”
    “Well, yeah ... but it’s not, is
it?”
    “It would be, if I had any
recollection of anything during my stay ... if I had memories to go
along with these visits. I don’t know … I guess it’s not the worst
thing that could happen. I just wish that I knew –”
    Looking at her with intense eyes,
Court spoke up, “What do you mean? Like you know that you've been
places, but you don't have memories of any of them ... like no
recall of anything...”
    “Yeah, that pretty much sums it
up...”
    “So, there’s just nothing?”
    “Well, not exactly nothing ...
I mean, I don't have the ability to remember a lot of things ...
which is sometimes really scary...”
    “That must be terrible… I mean,