"We're leaving Enjolras?" There is a sharp, serrated edge to Grantaire's voice, quite different from his usual resignation. "He gave himself up for us, and we're leaving him?"
Combeferre looks at him in surprise. What has happened in the past few minutes to change the other boy, he cannot begin to understand. But the change is there, growing steadily more perceptible. Grantaire, still wearing his resignation like perfectly transparent armour, seems to have a new fierceness beneath it.
"Valjean says it's the only thing to do. He says we have to trust him."
Grantaire snorts at this response and gives Feuilly a derisive look. "Trust him," he repeats, flatly. "He's asking a lot from us, isn't he? Trust an Official. Does he think we're idiots?"
Feuilly shakes his head wearily. "He knows there's nothing else we can do," he answers. "And anyway, what have we got to lose? Even if we get caught and killed – maybe – maybe it's better than the alternative." His voice cracks on the second 'maybe', and Marius lets out a fresh sob, quiet and guttural.
The clock ticks.
Quarter past the hour; that's what Valjean said. It is almost five minutes past, now.
"No," says Grantaire bluntly, "This isn't how it's going to be. We're going to go and get him."
Joly's eyes are wide. "Enjolras?"
And Grantaire laughs humourlessly. "No, Courfeyrac. Yes, of course Enjolras. Who else? That medic's going to get him killed or Altered or – I don't know – something."
"We can't," says Combeferre, and though his voice is level, something approaching panic is uncoiling itself ominously in the pit of his stomach. "We'll all die. We'll have achieved nothing."
"D'you think I care what we achieve?" there's that laugh again. Grantaire is on his feet, now, and pacing. "If we leave him to die, we're no better than them. D'you realise that? We're all cowards. I know I'm a coward, but at least I admit it. You lot, though – have you heard yourselves, whining about escaping? It's. Not. Going. To. Happen. Look what happened to Courfeyrac, when he tried. Look what's happening to him, now. He's not going to be able to think for himself. He's not going to have a personality. He might as well be a vegetable. He probably wouldn't recognise any of us. D'you get that? That's what's going to happen to us all. And we should get used to it." There's a dull flush in his cheeks, and his hands are clenched at his sides. He looks more alive than ever Combeferre or the others have yet seen him.
Marius is staring at him. The tears streaming down his face are silent, now. His shoulder-muscles bunch convulsively.
"Don't bother to help us, then," Combeferre says, and perhaps it is ironic how cool and curt his sudden feeling of warmth towards Marius makes him sound, "Go looking for Enjolras, and get yourself killed. It's not as if we can stop you. Do it; I'm sure Enjolras will be so grateful for it."
Grantaire, continuing to pace, ignores him.
Joly and Lesgles exchange glances. Joly's feet tap a nervous, skittering rhythm on the tiled floor.
Feuilly keeps glancing back, over his shoulder, at the clock. He looks exhausted and drawn. The discovery of Courfeyrac's fate has robbed him of whatever little energy the medic had been able to return to him.
And the clock ticks.
At fifteen minutes past eleven, Feuilly, with an effort, gets to his feet and, drawing the faintly clinking ring of keys from his pocket, goes to the door. They are all surprised by the ease with which it opens.
"We're doing this," says Lesgles in a hushed voice, "We're actually doing this."
Grantaire shoots him a glance – staccato; irritable.
Their first steps into the spotless, deserted corridor are tiny and furtive. By default, since he has the keys, Feuilly goes first. Joly and Lesgles follow. Then Combeferre, Marius, and lastly Grantaire, who shuts the door behind him. It emits a very final sort of click.
"What if we run into guards?" asks Joly, his voice barely more than a whisper. "What do we do then?"
"Run," suggests Grantaire with a hoarse laugh, "And try not to get shot at."
The first few paces are painfully slow, but they pick up speed quickly, staying close to the walls although in the bright, open expanse of corridor this wouldn't help a bit.
No one speaks.
They are almost at the end of the corridor when the quiet – such a carefully crafted illusion, here – is shattered.
A shot rings out.
It comes from somewhere above their heads. It resounds, a brief whip-crack that somehow goes on and on and on.
One floor up: that is where the medics carry out their treatment.
For a moment, everyone stays very still. It's a moment of terrified sideways glances.
Then Grantaire begins to run – in the opposite direction from the one in which they're supposed to be going.
The others tear after him, Marius letting out a cry of "Wait!" which makes the others flinch collectively, though as it turns out, the thundering of their footsteps is enough to alert any nearby officials to the fact that something is amiss.
Grantaire's shoes squeak on the tiles. He runs with his head down and his shoulders set, a charging bull. Combeferre's breath burns in his chest. Feuilly staggers; almost falls, but Lesgles helps him up. His face is paper-white and he's trembling from exertion.
Around a corner; into a stairwell. Grantaire pelts up the stairs, the others in pursuit.
Somewhere behind them, doors are opening.
At the top of the stairs, Grantaire himself shoulders open a door.
And then, as they emerge into a corridor that looks almost exactly like the one below it, more doors swing open.
Out of them come officials; less, actually, than Combeferre expects, but still too many for his liking. There are maybe four or five of them.
Grantaire barrels past them, desperation rendering him with a new strength. Marius lurches out of grasping hands. Lesgles and Joly run close together, charging straight towards an official who, seeing that they show no sign of slowing or swerving, has to leap out of the way at the last moment.
Combeferre is trying fruitlessly to fend off an official when he hears a garbled, agonised cry behind him. Full of dull dread, he cranes back to look.
The blink-and-you-miss-it sliver of a needle's glint catches his eye first. And then his gaze is fixed on Feuilly.
The other boy's eyes roll back in his head. His muscles stiffen and twitch; his body jerks forcefully. The official lets go of him in surprise and he falls onto the floor, still twitching, thrashing, legs thrumming uselessly against the tiled surface. His back arches, and he makes a low noise at the back of his throat which chills Combeferre to his core.
"What did you do?" the official who has hold of Combeferre's arm demands of the one standing over Feuilly. "You were supposed to sedate him; that's all."
The other man shakes his head. He looks bewildered, Combeferre realises, and a little frantic. "I did," he says, holding up the needle.
Feuilly can't breathe. He's drawing in frantic, ragged little gasps. His chest heaves. Veins cord darkly in his neck. Combeferre hadn't thought anything could be worse than watching Jehan Prouvaire die, but this – this is worse.
The others have stopped; turned back. Even Grantaire hovers, uncertain.
Combeferre tries to tug free of the official's grasp, and is so surprised when the man actually lets him go that he stumbles. The officials, too, are at sea. This wasn't supposed to happen. They can't afford any more mistakes.
As with Jehan, Combeferre finds himself kneeling on the cold floor beside this boy who, until a few days ago, had been a stranger. Saying Feuilly's name elicits no response from him; he either does not recognise Combeferre, or does not realise he is there at all.
"Do something," he hears himself begging the officials, "Can't you do something?"
And the one who had been holding onto him unholsters his gun.
"Horace," says the official with the needle, "Horace, what are you doing? You can't -"
A muscle in Horace's jaw twitches.
"No," says Combeferre, "No, I didn't mean -"
The official named Horace fires his weapon.
The boy's body gives a final, feeble jerk at the impact. His eyes go very wide and his breath leaves him in a choked, fragmented gasp. Blood, slow and viscous, darkens the pale fabric of his shirt.
"You shouldn't have done that," says the official with the needle, quietly. "It's not procedure."
"A lot of things around here aren't procedure. The kid was in pain. We couldn't have Altered him like that, anyway."
The official with the needle shakes his head, lips forming a tight line. "We could've tried," he says, and the one called Horace has the grace to look disgusted by this.
"Listen to yourself," he says, holstering his gun. He approaches Combeferre and pulls him to his feet. Mechanically, he complies. "I'm sorry you have to go through this," Horace tells him, "But it's -" he breaks off, then resumes, doggedly, "It's for the best. You'll thank me, one day."
"No I won't," says Combeferre, tonelessly. "I won't remember you. I won't remember anything."
And then, at the very end of the corridor, another door bursts open, and out of it, his face and clothes spattered with dark blood and his hair bright in the fluorescent lights, steps Enjolras.
