The Azuli by Cassidy Shay (best beach reads of all time TXT) 📕

it, I couldn’t make myself forget the real reason for the marriages.
We sat in silence for several minutes, until two Vipero showed up at the door. They were the same ones that had showed up when we first learned about the experiment.
“I need Penny Miller, please,” said the tall one. I stood up and followed them out without reciting all my information. Something told me that in front of my mom, it wouldn’t have been a good idea.
Wondering what was going to happen to me, I followed them through the halls. I assumed that they wouldn’t do anything bad, at least not until my parents were gone. Somehow, I managed to keep my fear controlled. I didn’t plan on being here much longer after my parents left.
Still, I wasn’t prepared for what happened. It was like a punch in the gut, knocking the wind out of me and literally leaving me speechless. First, the Vipero actually picked me up and threw me into the room. I landed hard on the floor, but when I got up, the door had been shut and the lights had been turned off. I sat back down and waited for someone to come in and tell me what was going on. I waited, and soon lost track of how long I’d been in the room.
Finally, the door opened and a small man stepped in. He acted very calm, as if he had all the time in the world. He turned the light on, and I instantly recognized him as the warden. He had eyes like a black hole, a dark, endless abyss. He was slightly hunched from years of paperwork and phone calls, and his hair was cut short. He was not an ugly man, but not handsome either. He had the type of face that made him look like a pleasant, kind person to those who don’t know him. Those that do know him, however, could see the evil.
He walked over to the table and sat in the chair, looking at a file. “Penny Miller,” he said. “How are you doing? Your parents drive you insane yet? Or are they still on your good side?” His presence sucked the air out of the room, making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak. Because of this, I kept quiet and did not move. “You’re being quiet today, then? Alright, this should go quickly. Two things- first, I’ve received information from a very reliable source that you are planning an escape.” It was this statement that completely robbed me of my ability to speak. How did he find out?

“I hope you know that if you weren’t so important to the lovely science department we have here, you would be exterminated tomorrow, regardless of whether or not this statement is true. It actually would be today, but I'd have to do all the paperwork for it. It takes an awful lot of paperwork to erase someone from existence.”
I still didn’t respond in any way. How could I? I was completely unable to move or talk. “And so that we can keep a constant eye on you, we will be moving the wedding a day forward. It will be in three days instead of four. On Wednesday, you get married. On Saturday, parents and siblings leave. On Sunday, you will be constantly monitored by one Vipero, if not two. How does that sound?” Without waiting for an answer, he walked out the door, and I heard a lock click into place. I inhaled a deep breath of air, and started to move around.
I stayed in that room for the rest of the morning, until lunch time. I started pacing, because I had nothing else to do. I counted steps from one side of the room to the next, back and forth, back and forth. I had no idea what I was going to do.
What was I supposed to do? Give in to their plan? Or tell my parents the truth? Maybe escape now instead of waiting? What do I do?

I tried to look through Memories, tried to find one that would give me hope, that would remind me that it’ll all be okay.
But all the Memories that I looked out, no matter how happy the beginning was, the end was terrible, scary, sad. Eventually, I stopped looking at memories and just sat on the floor and waited for someone to find me.
The DarkRooms and the punishment rooms were only cleaned on Sundays, which is why Collin hardly ever had time to talk on Sundays. I had forgotten this, though, and I was surprised to see the door being opened. They pushed the cart in, and then turned the light on. When he saw that I was in there, he stepped back.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that anyone was in here.” He paused for a minute, and then stepped forward. “Penny?” I looked up at his face, and my day instantly got a little better. I got up and stepped into him, wrapping my arms tight around him. “They moved the wedding, Collin,” I said. “My wedding is in three days, not four. I’m getting married on Wednesday. How am I going to do this?”
I latched onto him and didn’t let go. I started to sob, and he had to hold on to me to keep me standing. He didn’t say anything, just stood there holding me while my tears stained his jumpsuit.
After I calmed down a little bit, I pulled away but didn’t let go. I needed to feel his physical presence, or I knew that I would burst into tears all over again. “I’m sorry,” I sniffled. “I shouldn’t shove all my problems at you. I just… I don’t know what to do. All my planning was crushed today, unless I leave on Saturday, right after my parents and all the other parents are gone. I hadn’t planned on it being the same day. And if I don’t leave then, I’ll have a guard watching my every move. I just… I wish things would get better.”
“Penny, please don’t feel bad. I would feel like a horrible friend if I didn’t help you with everything that you’ve got going on. You need someone there for you, and I would be a little insulted if you went to anyone else. I mean… it’s not like I’m obsessed and want you all to myself all the time. Okay, I do, but I won’t turn into some creep who stalks you. I promise.” I felt his body shake with laughter more than I heard it. I smiled, but I had a feeling that a laugh would bring more tears. “If you stopped talking to me, and went to someone else with your problems, you don’t know how crushed I’d be, Penny.”
I didn’t say anything at first, but leaned back into him. “I’d never do that to you. You’re my best friend. What kind of person abandons her best friend?” I couldn’t look at him as I said this, because of my plans. Although I wasn’t abandoning the Academy because of Collin, I was still leaving him behind, alone. I was talking very quietly, and when he started to sit down, I sat with him. I started out with my head on his shoulder and my hands in my lap, but before long, my hand and his were intertwined.
I tried to get him to talk about his family. “Come one,” I said. “You know all about my family. I don’t know anything about yours.”
He just shook his head. “You don’t want to know about my family,” he told me. “You’d be mad, and sad, and you’d feel hopeless. I’ve already told you about my dad, and what happened to my brother. Why do you need to know more? Haven’t you heard enough?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t heard anything about your mom. Tell me about her.”
“No, Penny. I don’t want to think about them. They’re in my past. Right now, I just want to be with you and talk about happy things.”
I dropped the subject, decided that it was best not to push him any more than I already had.
We talked about my childhood, and it didn’t take long for me to discover that he hadn’t ever drawn anything before.
“What?” I asked, absolutely incredulous. “How do you live for seventeen years without drawing something? You have written something, right?” He nodded, and I let out a sigh of relief. “And you’ve never doodled in the corner by your name or anything like that?”
“Nope. We got in tons of trouble if we did. One time, this girl in my class drew a sun in the corner of her paper. They had three Vipero in there the next day, explaining the consequences of drawing anything. Since it was just a sun, and it was the first time it had happened, she didn’t get into major trouble. For two years, though, she had almost no friends because of that. She was also moved into a different class with fewer students so that the teacher could keep a close eye on her.” He shuddered as he remembered it. “Seeing the Vipero march in there, fully armed and ready to stop a revolution… it was scary.” He laughs a little. “It was definitely intimidating enough for me to never draw anything. Especially with my dad working for… nevermind.”
I decided not to ask him about his dad again. “You think that’s scary?” I asked. “Imagine being shocked with cattle prods because you’re a five-year-old who just wants to draw a picture, and you don’t understand why you have to do it with your eyes closed. That’s something that no little kid should ever have to go through. Unfortunately, each and every Azuli in here has been through exactly that. Every single inmate here has been shocked countless times for not understanding.”
“They shocked you? Did it leave scars?” he asked. He had excitement in his voice, but not good excitement. The look in his eyes scared me for a second, but I nodded anyway, and told him that they looked like giant freckles. “Can I see them?”
I nodded, and started taking off the top layer of my uniform. I had a shirt underneath it, but I still felt myself blush in front of Collin. When I had the top shirt off, I pointed out the scars on each arm.
“They get you in the same spot every time,” I said, and started to put my other shirt back on. He stopped me by putting his hand on mine, and then he moved his fingers lightly across the small bump on my right arm.
“These are from when you were five?” he asked? “That stayed all that time?”
“Well, not really. If you take too long to start drawing, they’ll shock you. Every once in a while, they’ll interrupt your drawing session by shocking you, just for fun. When that happens, you don’t actually feel anything until after you’ve already finished drawing. Those hurt the worst, though. It’s almost like the current builds in your body until you open your eyes again. I don’t know why it seems to grow like that, but when we’re drawing, we can’t be disturbed by anything in the physical world. An atomic bomb could go off right next to me and I wouldn’t know it.”
“So they just shock you for no reason? Isn’t that like… torture or something?” His face showed both concern for me and anger towards the Academy. I could also tell that he didn’t quite believe me.
I thought about some of the Memories, of the torture that used to take place. I shuddered. Compared to those, I was not being tortured. Compared to that torture, this