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

still be gone for a while. You have plenty of time to compose yourself.” Relief washed through me. I grabbed his hand and began to knead it with my fingertips.
“Stay with me, Collin, until someone comes looking for you. Stay with me until I leave this place.” He nodded, and we lay down together on the bed.
“I’ll stay here, Penny, but I know that it won’t be for as long as you want. You see, I’ve done something bad, and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to stay here long.” What?

“Collin, what are you talking about?” I asked, and pulled away from him. “Please tell me that you didn’t do something stupid.”
He hung his head in shame. “When I left, I took the laundry up to the sixth floor so that it could be washed. And then I came back down and… I hurt him, Penny. I hurt him bad. I just hope that I hurt him just as bad physically as he hurt you, both emotionally and physically.” He looked into my eyes and placed a hand on each side of my face. “I love you, and I couldn’t stand to see him do that to you without punishing him for it.” He dropped his hands from my face and wrapped them around mine. “But let’s not worry about that right now. Our time is limited, and I don’t want to spend it thinking about the future. It’s the present, so let us relish this window of time that we have together.”
I didn’t say anything, but instead I just curled up against him. I didn’t ask him who he was talking about. It was obvious to me that Collin beat Carl to a bloody pulp, but I didn’t want to think about that at all. Not then, anyway.
For a long time, we didn’t say anything. Finally, I broke the silence. “Collin,” I whispered, “what will you do when I’m gone?” He sighed, but otherwise remained silent for a few moments.
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” he answered. “I imagine that I’ll be pretty devastated. You’ve become the reason for all the joy in my life. Without seeing you, I don’t know what I’ll do during the day, or at night when I can’t sleep. Thinking of you will only hurt, but I won’t ever be able to stop.” Hearing him say that made me cringe inside. Knowing that he’s unhappy would make it impossible for me to be happy.
“Promise me that you’ll try to be happy. Promise me that you’ll try to find someone who you can be with, someone who will make you happy. Have children, a nice dog, or something like that. Have a good life.” I tried to sound like I’m in command, as if that might help. On the inside, though, I just wanted to cry.
“I will try, Penny. But I can’t promise that I will succeed. I am young, though, and I have plenty of time to recover and move on, find a new reason. But I will always be thinking of you. By the time this is all over, I will be very hurt inside. Shattered, really. It will be a while before I am able to move on at all.” I nodded against his chest, and then a shudder went through me.
“I have a feeling that they’ll be taking me soon,” he said. “I probably won’t ever see you again after they do.” The tears came again, stinging my eyes. “Please don’t cry,” he pleaded. “Don’t think about the bad, only the good. Remember the good times we had and the memories we’ve made. Someday, if you have children, tell them the stories, and keep me alive through that. Keep me in your thoughts and I promise you that everything will be okay.”
A few minutes passed, and we heard people come back from lunch. Among the light footsteps, we heard the deep thud of very large men running in very heavy boots. “The Vipero are coming.” I smiled when he said this, even though it wasn’t funny at all, thinking back to a Memory about the American Revolution, where a similar phrase had been used as a warning, just as Collin uses it now. It seemed so different, though, when it was used to warn me.
“I got him,” shouted one of them as he shoved the door open. They all rushed into the room and started to drag him away from me. I followed them into the hallway, where everyone stood, petrified with fear.
“Please, don’t take him,” I begged, latching on to an arm of a particularly scary-looking Vipero. “Please.” The last word was barely audible, only a whisper of a whisper. He shook his shoulder, wrenching his arm from my grip. The two guards holding Collin were farther down the hall, so I sprinted to catch up with them. “Wait!” I yelled, but they didn’t listen. I sprinted faster, and reached my arm out to grab Collin’s hand.
The guards stopped, although I’m not sure why. It didn’t really matter, though. I didn’t stop to think about their reason. Instead, I carried out my plan. I grabbed Collin’s face in my hands and brought my lips to his. He kissed me back, and the butterflies that were once in my stomach were now fireflies, igniting a flame inside me that would never be extinguished.
“I love you,” I said as they started to drag him away again. The Vipero that I had grabbed earlier came up and grabbed me around the waist.
“Time to go back to your room, Miss,” he said. “No more causing trouble. There’s this thing called order, and it must be restored. You and your group of boyfriends have caused enough trouble for us, and it’s time for it to stop.” By now, we were at my door. He set me down, closed the door, and I was alone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It had been three hours since Collin was dragged away, three hours since I saw the only man I want to see. Three hours since I saw him for the last time. Three hours since my parents discovered who I really love.
As they were leaving, I tried to explain that the kiss hadn’t meant anything to me, just to him. I tried to explain that I really was in love with Carl, not Collin. I fed my parents more lies, trying to protect them from the truth of what is really happening.
After our parents left, I was handed a stack of pictures. “You get to keep three,” said the Vipero, and then left. The three that I picked were the three that everyone would expect me to pick.
I was looking at them then. The first was of my parents and I. We all had big smiles on our faces, and my arms were around both of their shoulders. We looked like a normal, happy family, with no cares in the world. The second photograph was of Jack, Macy, and I. We were all goofing around, acting like brother and sisters, not people who have been imprisoned since the age of five.
The third photo was my favorite. It symbolized everything that has happened in this past week. To anyone else, it was a picture of a handsome red-headed boy with a huge smile on his face, who was just married to me. But in the background, there was another man. He had a smile on his face as he was talking to a girl in a white dress, handing her a silver necklace that says “Love, Collin” on the back.
I sighed and clasped the charm that was hanging around my neck. “I love you, Collin,” I whispered. Then, even quieter, I prayed. “God, if you exist, help me do what I need to do. Help me get out of this place. But most of all, be with Collin, and keep him safe.” I stood slowly, but waited a couple more seconds before I started walking. Any movement of my legs still sent excruciating pain all the way down my thighs. “It’s now or never,” I said to myself. I tucked the pictures into my jumpsuit and headed down the hall. At the end, I turned left, then another left soon after that. Then it was a straight stretch to my way out of this place. A straight line to my freedom.
I walked down the hall until I was standing in front of Cell D7. It was the door that’s never been opened, at least not in front of anyone. I was positive that it was my way out of the Azuli Academy.
My plan was very simple. I hadn’t had a whole lot of time to make out a plan when I wasn’t also thinking of something else. This made me nervous, but I knew that whatever was behind that door must be better than what was on this side of it.
Reaching my hand out to turn the knob, I discovered that it was unlocked. A quick look around told me that no one was watching. I opened the door and crossed the threshold, closing the door behind me. I am free.

Epilogue

If only it was that simple. You’re probably wondering what was in the mysterious room. Well, I can’t tell you what was there, exactly. What I can tell you is that it was all a trap.
When I woke up, the Warden told me a story. The very first warden of the Academy had ordered an oddball room to be on each floor, to fuel the fire of curiosity within the inmates. Then, he had planted the rumor that the room led to the outside. Stupidly, I believed it.
Now, I’m sitting in a room, waiting for the present warden to finish reading the report that I wrote about why I tried to escape. Apparently, it’s going to be used in some psychiatric study or something. I was told to write the truth, so I did. Starting with the day we were told of the experiment, I wrote in vivid detail.
I wait a few more hours, and then I hear a door click. Footsteps come near me and I tense up. The warden, who I’ve only met a few times in the three years that he’s been here, looks at me as if he knows everything about me. Considering the report that I gave him, he has reason to think that.
“Did Carl really… uh… you know?” It seems strange to me that this man, after everything he’s done and despite everything he stands for, can’t even finish this sentence. I nod my head and look down, hoping that I can get sympathy from him. Maybe he’ll kill me quickly if he thinks I’ve already suffered enough in my lifetime. “Well, then. That will certainly be taken care of soon. Now, this Collin fellow. You really like him, don’t you?” I