The Old Baily, London.

'Hair colour?'

One of the officers seized a fistful of Valjean's hair. Pained, he winced, causing his shackles to jangle slightly. 'Brown and greying,' he said, releasing his scalp with a shove.

'Nose?'

'Straight.'

The second officer typed ponderously, feeding the yellow parchment through the writer and squinting slightly at the inky words.

'Distinguishing features?'

'Yeah,' the first officer replied. 'He's a fucking froggy. And there are scars all down his back and on his wrists.'

Jean breathed heavily, recounting with shame the preceding moment when he'd been stripped naked and searched for weapons. Now he wore the homogenous canvas uniform that still bore the faint bloodstains of its final wearer and—he realized with a grimace— the lice.

The second officer gave his colleague a withering glance. He was a young man, ginger, and strangely gentle-looking. His pipe smoldered on a nearby ashtray. 'Pronounced French accent,' he decided, typing. 'Old scarring on wrists and back. Now—' he pulled his chair back with a scrape and popped the pipe into his mouth. 'Look into the lens.'

Wriggling slightly from the lice, Jean took a moment to register what was happening. A blackboard was roped around his neck, chalked with a six-digit number that he failed to read.

'Into the aperture,' the officer repeated, tapping the huge, accordion-gilled contraption that glared beadily with a single black eye. 'Hands on your chest.' Jean obliged dumbly. With a glaring flash and a white puff, his picture was captured. 'Very good,' the officer said flatly. 'Brooks will cut your hair.'

Once the heavy timber door has shut behind them, if was like the room had grown five degrees colder. A sweat sprung to Jean's armpits as Brooks unsheathed the scissors, sharp and glossy and wielded with the pride of a farmer to a brand-new hunting gun. One pink, crabby hand bore down on his crown as the other lobbed at the hair, nicking it as close as he could to the skin.

'You won't be here for long,' he muttered. His weight buckled Jean's neck. 'They ship fellas like you off to Australia.'

A black shudder went through him, all down one side. He froze. No. He couldn't go to Australia; he'd rather rot in the holding cell, knowing that there was a chance of seeing Cosette again, than abandon her on the other side of the world. The scissor blade sliced him.

'You'll bake in the heat,' Brooks continued, matter-of-factly. 'It drives some men insane. That's if you make it at all. Some die on the boat. A plague went around a few shipments ago—a whole barrack of men died in their own shit and spew. And they were the lucky ones.'

Jean dropped his gaze into his lap. The silver of his shackles reflected his own face back to him: warped, drawn and shorn bald. A trickle of blood sluiced down his forehead. His heart raced. 'Monsieur,' he started in a low voice, wary of speaking out of turn. 'I…I cannot go to Australia. I must stay here.'

Though he couldn't see it, he could feel Brooks' glare was beating down on him like a hot sun. 'You what?' he said. There was a sound of leather on metal. His baton had been pulled from his belt. Holding everything tense, Jean continued furtively.

'I have a daughter. She is all alone. I can't leave her in this country.'

Jean was not a foolish man—he had spent the best part of his life hiding in shadows, being cautious and choosing his words with care—but at that moment, he failed to see the audacity in his request. Perspective was blitzed by the primal need to protect his child. All he knew was that he couldn't leave London, that he needed to escape, to find Cosette and to guard her once more. It was the only certainty that he had managed to grasp in the hectic cyclone of a day. He felt like a man sliding down a hill, reaching for shrubs and brambles and coming back empty-handed.

'Why you cocky little…' Brooks began to chuckle incredulously. The confusion passed like a cloud. Jean's stomach lurched. 'You'll learn to respect your officers. And I'll make sure you're the first blighter on that sorry ship.' The baton came down with a hard whack. The chair capsized. He was crawling, dazed, injured, following one clear, electric thought: I have to get out.

'You just don't know how to fucking help yourself, do you?' Brooks growled, as Jean scrambled to the timber door. He shouldered against it with all his might, head spinning. It seemed like the walls were moving. Seasick, he fell to his knees, trying to grasp what was stationary. Brooks stood above him, like a sadistic child watching a de-winged fly struggle across a window ledge. A tiny grill of bars was cemented into the wall, showing a slice of the darkening sky. Jean flocked to it, rattling the bars in his fists as though he could pry them free. Then, like a caught fish struggling for life, he pushed his face against it and sucked in the fresh air that he knew he would be begrudged of for some time.

'You won't survive long in Botany,' Brooks said, with the manner of someone who had seen this kind of frenzy before. With his senses slowly returning to him, Jean yielded, releasing the bars and sliding down the length of the wall.

'My daughter,' he panted. It was like he was being squeezed in a huge metal vice. All logic flouted, all he knew was panic, fear, and loss. He would never see Cosette's face again. He would never lead her to church, never read with her, never delight in how much she had grown, never watch over her as she sat in the golden light of garden and experience the pure, unbounding love that he'd never thought he was capable of. That was the thing he feared losing the most: love. Freedom, liberty and comfort were paltry. But being blanched of the one thing that had kept him alive through forty years of being hunted was unbearable. His life had been a barren desert, and his love for Cosette had been a sudden cool spring. Now it was a mirage, blurring into the distance, teasing him with its absence.

'Quite finished, froggy?' Brooks asked, with a dark softness in his voice. The seconds plodded by. The air was tombal, damp, thick—he was breathing bricks. Somewhere in a neighboring cell, a baby wailed. 'I'm adding a lashing for every second of my time you waste.'

But Valjean didn't care. He truly didn't. At that point, he would happily be cleaved in two by the birch flogger. All gone, he thought. All the struggling, the toil, the hiding in corners—I haven't been careful enough. And now Cosette will suffer for my callousness. She has had love ripped from her just as mercilessly as I have.

'I've not got time for this.'

He was being lifted from the ground. Swaying on the soles of his feet, he saw white: a maze of whitewashed walls, of putrid paraffin lamps and a subterranean dampness. Then, a huge oak frame. In passing, he'd thought that it was a crucifix. He had been mistaken.

'Kneel,' Brooks barked.

He sank to his knees on the leather rectangle, trying not to look at the slashes. He instead cast his eyes up to the structure, the two wooden arms reaching up, like the arms of the suffering Christ.

The first crack sliced his skin open. He lurched forwards with the sting, biting his lip to prevent himself from crying out. With the second wallop, his old scars were split afresh. The salt and vinegar used to augment the pain seared through his skin, nettling him with aftershocks. He clenched his fists.

'Twenty,' Brooks said, taking Jean's swaying shoulder. He wanted to weep, right from his gut; the pain was unbearable. Another flog smacked down. He hissed. Blood was running into his canvas trousers. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

Cosette used to urge him to play dolls with her. He would always be Elizabeth. She'd laugh at the high-pitched voice he'd try.

He'd torn him to muscle.

"Jonah and the whale" was her favorite story. He'd read it by candlelight, yawning into the back of his hand. She had an appetite for books when the dark pressed in and she could nestle down beside his heavy warmth. She loved the part when the whale spat him back onto dry land. He'd read and re-read until her eyes had slid shut and her breaths had taken on the rhythm of sleep.

His shoulders chugged with soundless sobs. Fifteen. Sixteen. Brooks panted, pink in the face. He took a break, shaking his arm.

Sometimes he'd watch her when she was asleep and be filled with fear. Her hair was splayed out on her pillow like golden silk. Her face was like a cherub's, and yet all he could feel was dread. Dread that one day, he could lose her, and that it would destroy him. He felt like he was cradling the most fragile treasure in his hands and at the peril of dropping it. He walked to the living room, trying to untangle his heartache. He didn't sleep all night.

Seventeen. Eighteen. Relief. Relief. Blinding and white. He wasn't afraid anymore. He turned his eyes up to the frame, begrudged of its Messiah. All was barren and hopeless and he wasn't afraid.

Kiri's Lane, London

Johanna weaved her finger between the bars of the bird cage and whistled. There was a colorful frenzy of wings. Mary leapt onto her fingertip, chirping, and Johanna smiled. Mary was the most handsome of her birds, with a dab of rosewood pink on her breast and a tawny beak. The only thing that prevented her from being truly beautiful was the absence of her eyes. Like all of her birds, she was blind. It was the root of the perennial singing; she knew not night or day.

With a nudge, she freed Mary from her finger and sat by the window once again. Rain struck the panes, causing the people below to clutch their hats and hair. Johanna placed her bare forearm against the glass, relishing the coldness. What was the air like outside? Fresh? The kind of fresh that cut your lungs to take a full breath? Did it smell of rotting flora, of all that had been baked into the cobblestones during the hot weekend? The air in her room was muggy. It smelled of paraffin, heavy fabrics, dust and powder. A few years ago, damp had caused her to fall ill. The maids had scrubbed and scrubbed at the walls as she lay on the bed, dull, blood-red light seeping in through the curtains. She'd woken sporadically, losing track of the hours, not knowing the morning from the dusk. It had been like that the second time, the second time that pain had anchored her to the bed for weeks on end…

The thought lasted for half second, like a wasps' sting. Johanna pulled her hand free of the cage and promptly got up to move to her dresser, as if hoping that the throes of the painful recollection was something she could physically move past. Seating herself, she snatched up the bone handle of her brush and began to drag it through her yellow hair. The mirror reflected her face back to her: her saucer-wide, plaintive eyes, her ivory skin, her long neck which trembled as though nursing a trapped scream.

Most days, she was better at distracting herself. Behind her sat a case crammed with so many books that the shelves had begun to buckle. Turpin would satisfy her desire to read with an indifferent grunt and instructions to the maids to collect every title on her list, unknowing of the power that strained behind their yellowing pages—Johanna had managed to teach herself French, Italian and Latin by herself. She had grasped the basics of religion and history, and had spent many hours sat by her window, steeped in sweeping tales of romance, poverty, war and adventure.

Her most recent endeavor sat splayed on the arm of her chair—a tricky brick of a book that she had hardly broken into. She tried to pin her failed efforts to the denseness of the prose, but Johanna knew that other things were at work. And it was all due to her master.

He was usually a creature of habit; she would hear his footsteps outside her bedroom at around nine o'clock. Nowadays, he could pace for hours, and she didn't know why—his intrusion was inevitable, even if it had been preceded by Mea Culpas' and flatulating. She had stopped resisting at this point. Instead she would lie awake, not wishing for her sleep to be broken, and stare at the floral moldings on the ceiling above her. White lilies.

But the past few days had been different. He'd been agitated some nights and remorseful others. Some weeks ago he had even knelt by her bedside, bowed his head and prayed, his confessions muffled against her bedsheets. Perhaps he has finally sought a conscience? Johanna thought. Whilst not understanding the act fully, she had a feeling that it was shameful. And she'd gleaned from her novels that it was an elusive "act" only sanctified by marriage, not intended between fathers and daughters in the stifled dark.

The door clicked open. She started, dropping her comb with a clatter. Heart racing, her eyes reeled to the clock: four thirty. Too early.

He stepped inside. Slowly. Deliberately. In her mirror, Johanna saw only a pair of legs dissected at the torso. Her heart hammered, wishing to know the expression that was on his face.

There was silence, and yet his presence had altered the entire atmosphere of the room. Everything felt treacle-thick and too hot as he picked his way to the window and drew the curtains closed. Keeping her eyes fixed on her reflection, Johanna watched as the light was shut out, casting her face in darkness.

A bare twenty seconds slugged past. Her pulse hared in the dark.

'What,' she started raspingly, and cleared her throat, startled at her own voice. 'What are you doing here?'

He held the silence for a minute longer. 'Johanna,' he said, in a voice that was barely there. His footfalls were heavy, plodding. It felt like a nail was being hammered further and further into her with each step. She saw the hand before she felt it. It drifted up from her shoulder to her jaw, tracing lightly over her skin. 'My dear Johanna…'

He was becoming lost in the act. Taking a strand of freshly brushed hair, he sifted it through his fingers. Her stomach gave a sick lurch. 'Look at me,' he said, breathless. Johanna stayed still, petrified. 'I said—' he grabbed her suddenly. She squealed in fear as he clamped her jaw and forced her to her feet. 'Look at me!'

Panting and terrified, she did: his eyes were red raw, his face racked with heavy lines, his hair all in disarray. Johanna's arms trembled. 'Look at what you've done to me,' he said, with such grit that her face was sprayed with spit. His hands reached slowly down, still clamping, until they were wrapped around her throat. Her pulse sat tight and stinging against his grasp. 'You torment me. You tempt me. And I know no peace—no peace of mind, of soul—'

She let out a choked gasp. Blood was filling her face. Every nerve in her body screamed for freedom. 'I am damned because of you.' He pushed his thumb into the soft skin of her neck, angling her windpipe to the side. 'Yet I am not to blame for this temptation. It is you who beguiles me. Say it.'

He rattled her. ' 's me,' she managed, gagging. His eyes flickered, and Johanna was sure that she could see the brain working behind it. She liked to keep her own face blank, unreadable.

'I am just,' he said. The slight look past her made her think that he was trying to convince himself. 'A just and noble caregiver. I took you in when no-one else would. Your vixen of a mother, your foolish pig of a father… they left you nothing. You would be out on the streets if it weren't for me.'

Despite everything, Johanna experienced a sudden rush of excitement. It was seldom that her parents were mentioned. Every scrap of information that was tossed her way—however derogatory—was golden.

'It's the least I can ask for in return for guarding you all these years,' his gaze dribbled down to her breasts, which strained precariously as she fought for breath. 'Payment. Companionship.' He looked up, his face suddenly hard. 'And yet my conscience is burdened.'

Her whole body began to tremble like a caught fish. He gave a smirk, relishing the power he wielded with just one hand. 'What do you propose we do, my dear?'

'Please,' she gasped, and realizing his severity, he loosened his grasp ever so slightly. 'There must be… another girl that you can find. Someone who would…' she struggled with every word, her throat full and aching against his fingers. '…share your bed. A mistress, who is as young as I.' She grasped his wrist, begging him to ease his hold again.

'What would you have me do? Scout the street corners for disease-ridden waifs? Search for gutter girls who have sold their bodies to every drifter in their slum?'

'There must be—' she coughed. '—There must be virtuous girls. Girls who are young and who have not yet been… taken.' Despite the blood that was flooding to her head, Johanna had kept some of her wits about her. There was an unspoken knowledge that Turpin's predilection was for very young girls. This had been attested four years earlier, when a fifteen-year-old servant had fled the Turpin home in tears. Johanna had been woken in the small hours by a furious hammering at the door, and threats that were wielded by the girl's half-crazed father. She also knew that he preferred women of class; his night-time visitors occasioned between the pubescent, scab-faced girls he'd found wandering the lane, or older women, with their smiles and high makeup, painted fans and pearls.

'And where might I find these girls?'

Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. The chirping of her birds grew dim. 'I am ignorant to such matters—sir, judge, please,' she gave a whimper. Panic lapped at the edges of her thoughts, but then an idea popped up like a life raft. 'The prisons!' she croaked, thinking suddenly of Charles Dickens. 'The work houses. The girls' reformatory.'

Her legs buckled. Turpin let her collapse to the floor, gasping for breath. She coughed and spluttered as he stood over her, thinking. Rubbing at her bruised throat, she watched as he cast his eyes down to her, crumpled and breathless on the ground.

His quietest words were unleashed: 'For your sake, my child, I hope you are not mistaken.'

Hi guys! A lot of research went into this chapter so I would really appreciate some feedback. Have a great day! Gi