Free Fever by Lauren DeStefano

meet someone special,” Madame says, her breath hot in my ear. Her smoke coils around my throat like a hissing serpent.
    I think I’ve stopped breathing, because the color emerging from the darkness, in the shape of a man much bigger than me, is all gray.
    Nobody is sure exactly why the Gatherers chose the color gray for their jackets and vans. Sometimes the vans are poorly repainted, the windows globbed over with dribbling gray, the tires splashed with it. The jackets are not all uniform—I know that much. They are also hand-dyed, all different cuts and styles. The Gatherers are their own underground group, and while some say they work for the government, one thing that’s certain is that they travel in packs; they find one another, form a shelter somewhere, and wait for opportunities. Maybe they split the money they make off us, and use it to fuel their vans, load their guns, indulge themselves in liquor and whatever else they want.
    I think this man’s smell hits me before the color of his coat. Like mold and liquor and sweat. It must be laborious for them, stealing so many girls. Must make them perspire. Especially those of us who fight, scratch, make them bleed any way we can.
    His smile emerges next, his teeth rotten like the broken smiles of Madame’s girls.
    I take a half step back out of instinct, but Madame wraps her arm around mine, and her nails and cheap jewels are clawing into my skin until I’m sure I must be bleeding from it.
    The man cups my face in his hand, and Madame gestures to Jared, who holds the lantern up over my head. And I realize what’s happening. This man, this Gatherer, is looking at my eyes, the way my brother and I would look through apples in the marketplace for the best pick. Something flashes in his eyes like delight. I struggle, though the realization of what’s happening still hasn’t quite reached me. Not until Madame names her price.
    And finally, finally, I understand the word Maddie was writing for me.
    Run.
    Her hands are still moving, screaming.
    Runrunrunrunrun.
    The Gatherer is arguing, saying he can get girls much cheaper on the street. He looks so angry that he could spit. And Madame is laughing, smoke bursting out of her mouth, saying, “Not like this one, you won’t.”
    Run.
    I can’t! Gabriel is still a prisoner here. Madame will kill him; I’m sure of it. Kill him when she realizes she can’t turn him into one of her bodyguards. He doesn’t have it in him to hold a girl against her will—to carry a gun, much less shoot one.
    And even if I were to run, how far could I get? Jared is standing right beside me, shining the lantern on me, ready to grab me at a moment’s notice. My breath hitches. My mind is in a fury.
    Runrunrun.
    Run where? Run how?
    The Gatherer is indignant, but he isn’t leaving. Madame knows that, one way or another, she will sell me. She’s smug about it. And I should have seen it coming, really. What use does she have for yet another girl? All the girls in this place are wilted, dried out, used up. There’s a whole tent just for the ones that are in all stages of the virus, and she offers them to her customers at a discount. The men leave them, wiping the blood of the dying girls’ kisses from their stubbly mouths. Everything has a price. How long has it been since she had a healthy girl, whole and fully conscious, with clean teeth and all?
    She told me I reminded her of her daughter.
    The daughter she loved too much. The daughter whose death left a permanent scar on her soul. She will never, never love again.
    I should not have loved my daughter as I did. Not in this world in which nothing lives for long.
    The Gatherer offers a lower price.
    You children are flies.
    Madame doubles hers.
    You are roses.
    “Robbery,” he spits out.
    You multiply and die.
    Madame triples it. “This one is a goldenrod,” she cries, like that should mean anything to him. “She is a gem. She will make you a fortune in return.”
    “Eyes are eyes,”