Page 58 of Cruel Hearts

“Sorry.” I grabbed her trembling shoulders, but Maeve didn’t straighten. “Are you alright?”

“I need fresh air.”

Behind the stairs stood a fire exit. I looped my arm through Maeve’s and walked her to the door. Drops of water, which could only be tears, fell onto the floor.

“What’s wrong?” I pushed down the metal bar that operated the door, letting in gusts of freezing air. Snow covered the usually manicured gardens, with paths dug around the building. Their surfaces reflected in the pale sunlight, looking like they had melted and frozen into ice.

Maeve stumbled out into the ground and fell on her face. When I tried to pick her up, she was completely unresponsive.

“Maeve.” I knelt on the ice, the cold wetness seeping through my tights, and rolled the girl onto her side. Her pale skin blended in with the wintry surroundings and her lips turned blue.

Every ounce of blood drained from my face. She was barely breathing and looking like she’d already frozen to death.

Chapter 21

When the fire door slammed shut behind us, leaving us both alone in the snow I thought Maeve would perish. Templar was a tiny village in the middle of nowhere and it would take hours for help to arrive. Dark clouds covered the sky, and a frigid wind blew down that froze me to the marrow.

But Maeve must have had a guardian angel because when I called for an ambulance, it came within five minutes. According to the paramedic, they had just finished with a patient in Templar. In a blur of activity, they wrapped her up in blankets, stuck an intubation tube down her throat, and whisked her to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

I had to sit in a waiting room, not knowing what on earth had happened to Maeve, but I texted Mr. Burgh to let him know what had happened.

About an hour later, an Asian nurse stepped into the room and led me through the maze of hallways to the Acute Medical Unit, which consisted of twelve beds separated by blue curtains. Maeve lay propped up in her hospital bed, the purple circles under her eyes making her look like she’d lost a fight.

A bolt of worry shot through my heart, and I rushed to her bedside. “What happened?”

Maeve squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away. “It’s so stupid.”

“It can’t be worse than anything I’ve done.” I placed a hand on her gown-clad shoulder. “You can tell me.”

Silence stretched out between us, and I took the time to examine Maeve’s appearance. Her hair was the same, vibrant shade of copper with marmalade highlights, a sharp contrast to the mottled white skin that barely covered a network of blue veins.

I was about to prompt her to answer when she lay on her back and heaved out a long breath. “It’s Elizabeth.”

My stomach dropped. “What about her?”

“You know how she’s always criticizing us girls?” she asked.

“Yes,” I kept the anger out of my voice.

“She also helps us.” Maeve raised her hands and made air quotes.

“To do what?”

“Weight-loss pills.” Tears rolled down the girl’s pale cheeks. “Someone worked out last year that they were only caffeine pills, so we started buying them online and on Glasgow weekends.”

I swallowed hard, anticipating where this story was going. “Okay…”

Maeve’s tongue darted out to lick her lips, and I poured her a cup of water from the plastic jug on the over-bed table.

“Thanks,” she rasped and took a sip.

“Dealers can’t stay in business if their customers can get their product somewhere else,” I said. “What did Elizabeth do next?”

“Around the middle of last term, she let us try a blend that worked a lot better than stupid caffeine. It got rid of my cravings and gave me an energy boost.”

I narrowed my eyes. Was she talking about speed?

I bit down on my bottom lip. This reminded me so much of Sammy’s weed business. When I first moved in with him, he grew the usual shitty strains as everyone else. Then he had a botanist make him a hybrid and called it heavenly kush, which was a bitch to grow but looked, smelled, and tasted different from anything on the market.