Page 21 of Mad Love

“It’s not that easy,” Ash told him flatly, his eyes still on me. “Highwater is where the richest and douchiest of the world send their problem children. We’re talking kids of ambassadors and foreign diplomats… Rumor even has it the prince of Belgium stashed his son there after he went on a three-week bender in Fiji.”

“Meaning?” I growled.

“Meaning it’s locked down tighter than a maximum-security prison,” he told me. “We can’t just storm in there and demand her back, Ryan. We need a plan. A good one.”

I shoved down the urge to go in guns blazing. Ash was right; we had to be smart. Gary had been a step ahead of us for weeks. It wasn’t a coincidence that he’d put Maddie in one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the western hemisphere.

I exhaled heavily, forcing my pulse to slow. “Fine. Let’s start by paying the good doctor a visit.”

CHAPTER 10

MADDIE

Staring at the lumpy mashed potatoes on my plate, I sort of missed my salads. At least they’d had color. I stabbed the plastic tines of my spork into the mound, unsure if I was willing to eat this or not. Then again, I’d eaten some pretty questionable school lunches in Michigan.

When I looked around the drab cafeteria, with its rows of plastic tables and chairs full of sullen young adults, it looked disturbingly like my old school, right down to the “Be Your Best Self” poster of a kitten hugging a tree that hung on a wall near the trash compactors.

“It’s better if you don’t think about it,” Joss suggested from where she sat across from me. After stopping by my room, she’d offered to show me to the dining hall, which was way less fancy than it sounded.

Joss and I hadn’t spoken on the way down the hall, but then again, no one really spoke as we all walked like cattle toward the promise of something to fill the ache of my empty stomach. We waited in line as we were handed trays of food, and without much else to do, I’d followed Joss to the table we sat at now.

She scooped up another bite of mashed potatoes and shoved it into her mouth before swallowing.

“Did you even chew that?” I asked, arching a brow.

She shook her head. “No. It’s kind of like the meds around here—get it down as fast as you can.”

“How long have you been here?” I set my spork aside, focusing on her instead of the food.

Her lips thinned as she thought of the answer. “A little over two years now, I think.”

I felt my eyes get huge. “Years?”

Sighing, she nodded. “Yeah. Honestly, I don’t think about it much now. I mean, I fought it at first. But everyone has their breaking point, you know?” She stared down at her half-eaten tray. “At some point, accepting it just made more sense. There’s no getting out. No escaping. Trust me, I’ve tried it all, from hiding meds to seducing one of the guards.” She shuddered. “I really don’t recommend the last one.”

“Jesus,” I whispered. “Why are you here?”

Joss glanced around the cafeteria space. “Same reason as most people—I can’t be controlled by my family, so they pay doctors and guards to do it for them.”

My shock must’ve shown on my face, because she chuckled, the sound void of humor.

“Take a look around,” she said, waving her spork at the people in the room. “I’d be willing to bet half the people in here didn’t do shit to warrant this prison sentence except be born into rich-as-fuck families where image is everything.”

“Sounds about right,” I agreed.

Joss took a drink of her milk and eyed me. “So, what abhorrent crime landed you in here?” She snapped her fingers. “Wait, no. Let me guess. You made a sex tape with the pool boy and uploaded it to a porn site.”

My brows slowly climbed up my face.

She huffed out a breath. “Okay, not that. Are you gay? Did some girl-on-girl action get you sent here to straighten you out?” She let out a derisive snort, her lip curling back.

I startled. “Huh?”

“There’s plenty of LGBTQ-plus in here,” she said, unphased by my reaction. “God forbid we not conform to the upper elite’s stuffy-ass version of heteronormal.” She jerked her chin toward a far table, where a girl with blonde ringlets framing a porcelain face with doll-like blue eyes sat alone. “That’s Pearl. She’s here because her parents sent her to one of those fucked up ‘pray the gay away’ camps for three years. When she fell in love with another girl, they sent her ass here. Last week she got her fifth round of electroshock therapy.”

“I’m not gay,” I admitted, watching as Pearl ate her meal with robotic movements, unaware of anything else.

“Okay, then what heinous crime got you locked up here?” She tilted her head.

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