Free With Every Breath by Elizabeth Camden Page A

I should know about?” Trevor asked.
    Oskar unscrewed the bottle and took a swig, his face twisting in distaste as he got the oil down. “There is a new whore working a few blocks down. Curly hair. Bad teeth.”
    Trevor nodded and set off in the direction Oskar pointed, scanning the crowds as he went. Even in the dim light, he was good at spotting the kinds of people he searched for. The hollowed-out cheekbones and sunken eyes. The ghostly translucent skin that stretched across prominent bones. There were thousands of consumptives in the city, and most of them had nowhere to go.
    It didn’t take long to spot the woman Oskar mentioned. The way she leaned against a lamppost could be mistaken for a suggestive pose, but Trevor knew the look of exhaustion on her sickly white skin.
    When he approached her, she tried to stand a little straighter as she reached out to stroke his shoulder. He covered her hand with his own.
    “I just want to talk.”
    She winked and laughed. “Okay, one of those,” she said. Herlaugh held a distinctive rattle in her lungs. Her clothing looked clean, so in all likelihood she still had a place to sleep.
    “Do you have any children?” Trevor asked.
    “Heavens, no. I’m only eighteen.”
    She looked forty, but Trevor supposed she might still be in her twenties. Tuberculosis tended to age a person.
    “If you do have children, it is important not to cough around them. The sickness in your lungs can be spread. Sleep with the windows open.”
    The woman pushed away from the lamppost and pressed her body against him. “I said I don’t have children.” Her laugh was throaty, and her hands roamed his back. Trevor turned his face to the side, wishing for a mask, but there was no way he could earn the trust of these people if he pulled a mask out before speaking with them. He managed to disengage from the woman’s wandering hands, then reached into his coat for another bottle of serum.
    “This is a medicine that may help you. It doesn’t taste good, but you won’t be so hungry after you take a swig. Once in the morning and once at night.”
    She looked at it skeptically, the cloudy yellow oil glowing in the gaslight. This woman had no reason to trust strangers. It was impossible to know what had driven her to the streets, but she was a human being who had pain in her lungs and little kindness in her life. He knew that but for the grace of God he might have been in a situation as desperate as hers, and he would do his best for her.
    Trevor pressed the bottle into her palm, holding her wasted hand and looking deep into her eyes. He told her honestly that he could not promise the medicine would cure her lungs, but it would improve her overall health.
    “Is it going to cost me anything?”
    He shook his head. “I’ll be by every few weeks with more. What is your child’s name?”
    “Luke,” she admitted. “Just like the saint.”
    He gave her a sad smile. “Drink the oil and sleep with your windows open,” he said softly. “Do it for Saint Luke. He deserves it.”

5
    K ate grew to love her job more with each passing week, but as spring turned into summer, more hostile stories appeared in local newspapers about Trevor’s clinic. Two articles spoke of the dangers of having so many consumptives housed in a densely populated section of the city, while the third suggested Trevor was swindling patients of their life savings.
    The charge made Kate fume. She still wasn’t precisely sure where Trevor got the money to fund the clinic, but it wasn’t from the patients. Trevor didn’t charge them a dime to live there, and all of them had been destitute when they were accepted into the study. It was frustrating watching him become a punching bag in the newspapers, but every time she suggested he go on the offensive, he merely glowered at her.
    “I have the backing of the surgeon general,” he snapped. “No muckraking journalist can get me out of this hospital.”
    Which was a good thing, because