Chapter Two: Enjolras
Ten years earlier
Enjolras sat on the brass bench, staring blankly at city hall across the street. He didn't know what he was thinking. Why did he promise her he would take her in? He was twenty-two, hardly equipped to properly care for a teenage girl. He was a law student, poor, and far too short tempered.
Besides, he didn't deserve Cosette. Even after years in the system, she remained sweet, innocent, and kind, despite working under the seedy Thernardier and being subjected to the stares and gropes of grown men as she waitressed at the Corinthe. She was strong and kind. And, if he didn't become her guardian, she would be shipped to a group foster home in Marseilles. He didn't want to say goodbye to her in the slightest, and she felt the same about him. She was a sister, a daughter, and his best friend wrapped into one. But he just couldn't take care of her.
And yet, he'd made a promise. He glanced at his watch. Ten twenty-three. He was supposed to meet Cosette at ten thirty.
Enjolras slumped forwards, pressing his face into the palms of his hands.
What was he supposed to do?
Ten twenty-six.
He stood, though he joints and bones creaked and groaned. City hall was waiting. Cosette was waiting. He looked down at the forms in his hands.
Ten thirty.
There was simply a stretch of concrete between him and the courthouse. The busiest road in town.
He knew what he had to do.
Ten thirty-one.
The nervous secretary who'd been looking at her for the past fifteen minutes finally stood from behind her desk and walked over.
"Sweetie, are you waiting for someone? Do you need help?"
Cosette didn't answer the lady's inquiries. Instead, she looked at her dress. It was new. She and her mama pooled together their money to buy her a nice dress. All Fantine wanted was for Cosette to be cared for, and as the Thernardiers were stringent, Fantine still couldn't provide for her. Now that Enjolras was of age, she had a possibility for actual stability with one of the most important people in her life.
"He's coming," she said, attempting to convince herself.
"Okay," the secretary said, haltingly, and returned to her desk. Moments later, she picked up her phone and began talking.
As Cosette stared at the door of the social services department, the woman spoke candidly to someone who was certainly not a professional contact.
Ten forty-three.
"I know! It's so sad. But it was bound to happen eventually—that crosswalk was so poorly placed. Did they ever figure out who it was?"
At ten forty-five, someone finally walked through the door. It was the stern Sherriff Javert, with his regularly grave look etched around his mouth. He was trailed by a young rookie who glanced around, bumbling.
They took one look at Cosette and then turned to each other.
She tore her eyes away from them and looked back down at the clean fabric of her dress.
No. They're not looking at me. Why would they? I've done nothing wrong.
Footsteps sounded against the tiles. Heavy, echoing, and slow. They crept towards her as the doubt and the fear that she kept controlled began to wind around her heart.
Someone cleared their throat. She looked up into the kind, worried green eyes of the rookie cop. He looked hardly older than her, and his face was flushed under the sprinkle of brown freckles that fell across his cheeks.
"Are you Cosette Fauchelevant?" he asked. There was something in his voice that struck her cold.
"Oui," she whispered.
"Do you know a Luke Enjolras?"
"Oui…"
The freckled boy looked back at his supervisor, who nodded. He stepped forward and took Cosette's hand. She stared at their fingers, pressed together, and realized what was always said whenever doctors or cops took your hand.
No. NO. No. NONONONONONONONONO.
"There's been an accident…"
Her breath was sucked out of her chest as her vision blurred. Her knees buckled. Her fingernails dug into the palm of the poor police officer. Cosette collapsed to the floor of city hall.
Enjolras…
Present day
Enjolras forced his eyes open. Crusted over with sleep, it was nearly painful. His back ached, and his head was no better. After registering the sheer uncomfortable pain, he realized where he was. When he did, he jolted up.
He was still on the bench. Across the street, city hall was closed for the day.
I missed her, he realized, beginning to panic. I fell asleep trying to decide whether or not to adopt Cosette, and now I've become one of the many people who've abandoned her.
He forced himself to his feet, although it was excruciatingly painful to do so. He felt as though he'd run a marathon then slept for forty-seven hours afterwards. It looked as though he'd been out for a ridiculously long time—judging by the lack of traffic, it was close to two in the morning.
He and Cosette were going to go to brunch with Fantine and Enjolras's law professor, Valjean. Afterwards, he was going to move Cosette's things out of the Thernardier's house and into his own apartment.
What did she do? Was she okay? Did she hate him?
He fumbled through his suit, searching for his phone. Surely he had thousands of notifications. Cosette was sweet, but she was blunt. If she was angry with him, he would know. She wouldn't passive aggressively shut him out until he apologized.
His phone wasn't there.
Furious with himself, the situation, and the fact that after everything he'd been robbed, he began to storm towards the Corinthe. Surely she was working—it was 2 am on a Friday. Thernardier would need all the help he could get. In fact, he probably was putting his daughters to work as well.
The night was strangely quiet. The stars were hidden by thin clouds, and the mountains seemed more like monsters. As Enjolras passed a line of street lights, they blinked and stuttered until they ceased to work. All around him, storefront lights and billboards shut off. He watched as the entire town was plunged into darkness.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as though a freezing breeze caressed his back. Enjolras turned, but he couldn't see if there was lurking in the dark. Even the moon had fled the sky.
Something was wrong. More than just a power-out, more than just Enjolras—who rarely slept more than the bare minimum—taking a sixteen-hour nap on a metal bench.
The town lights slowly clipped back on, sending the valley back to its regular state of twinkling lights amidst the fog and the inky mountain dark.
He shuddered and pulled his suit jacket closer around his body.
As he continued to walk, he passed a few other late-night stragglers, looking just as lost as he felt. Some of them wore strange clothing, styles from back before Enjolras had even been born.
Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was hallucinating.
All he knew was he had to find Cosette and apologize, though it felt less and less like the usually quaint town of Musain was anywhere she would be. It felt more like hell than home—like the mirrored version of itself.
Or maybe it was Enjolras who was different. Maybe he just felt strange after sleeping for so long.
At least one thing was its regular self—the Corinthe was a beacon in the night in all its sleazy glory. Packed to the bursting point and blaring music through the cracked-open windows, people spilled out of the doors just as intoxicated as they'd always been.
Enjolras pushed past a couple, leaning on each other. As he passed them, he couldn't help but see that their eyes were shiny in the night. Like those of dolls.
He shrugged off the strange sight and pushed through the doors.
There were no children running about like there'd been as long as the Thernardier twins were smart enough to know how to clean glasses and make drinks. The child labor was mildly illegal, but it helped fifteen-year-old Cosette make a little money.
He pushed his way to the bar. The Corinthe seemed more crowded than usual… typically, there was an even distribution of customers between this bar and the one on the west side of town.
There were two strangers behind the bar.
That horrid, haunting feeling was back.
This isn't Musain.
A woman, sat on one of the rickety bar stools, turned around. He felt a bit of the vines around his heart loosen when he vaguely recognized her face. He didn't know her name, nor did he know exactly where she was from, but those brown eyes and that defiant chin were comforting features in a pool of unrecognizable faces.
He looked at the main bartender, a man with whisky staining his breath. Enjolras was suddenly and viciously filled with disgust. He had no patience with people who possessed no self control. What alcoholic would be dumb enough to work as a bartender?
"Is Cosette here?" he demanded.
The man just blinked. "Uh, not that I know of." He pointed behind Enjolras, at the lounge. Students were playing pool and air-hockey, as they always did. The small dance floor was dotted with people who just bounced to the beat of the music. The little stage in the corner was empty. "Take a look around, she might be at the pool tables or-"
Enjolras took a quick breath. The bartender got Cosette's name confused, so Enjolras repeated himself. "No, Cosette Fauchelevant. She's a waitress here."
There was a beat of silence.
"No she's not."
What? Nothing made sense. How could so much have changed in the course of a few hours?
"Yeah, she is."
"Look, mon ami-"
Enjolras gritted his teeth. Unnecessary familiar terms annoyed him to no end.
"-If a Cosette worked here, I'd know."
Actually stupored, for the first time since he could read, Enjolras stood back on the balls of his feet. The music scraped his ears, out of key and hallowing. He held back a flinch, wondering why no one else in the bar seemed concerned by it.
"I know a Cosette," an alto voice said nearby.
He turned to the woman who looked slightly familiar. Her eyes were glazed over with drunkenness, and even then, her jaw was set and her hands were steady. Her long, wild, chestnut hair was wound into a tight bun on the back of her head, but even then the strands that escaped were curly and frizzy. She kind of looked like- no. That was creepy. Comparing her to a ten-year-old girl was simply disgusting, so he tried to cast away that image.
She did resemble the Thernardier twins, though. Perhaps she was a cousin.
"Do you know where I can find her?"
The woman's mouth turned upwards, an alluring grin that didn't reach her eyes. "Better yet, I can show you." She stood from her bar stool, knocking back one last shot. "C'mon, or else it'll get dark."
Struck with confusion, he wondered if maybe he was crazier than he initially thought. It was darker than the bartender's future.
The woman laughed, perhaps at his perplexed look or at some joke that only she understood. He realized a little too late that she'd been alluding to the constant state of darkness the town Musain seemed to be.
It had been a longer walk than he'd expected. Instead of being led to the home of the Thernardiers, the woman- or, really, girl... she wasn't older than he was, and he still thought of himself as pre adulthood- led him through winding paths to a part of town that, as far as Enjolras knew, must have been renovated while he had been focused on finals. He only remembered woods being where houses now were.
She stopped him when they approached a uniform street a few blocks from a newly-constructed elementary school. "She lives in number fifty-four," she said, pointing. Enjolras couldn't pick out the numbers, but he knew that he had to get going.
Why was she here? When did she move? Did someone in town decide to foster her when I fucked up?
He picked up his pace, jogging past houses and empty, black windows. They all looked the same.
He heard the girl shout after him, "You're welcome, asshole!"
Enjolras felt no guilt. He had to find Cosette and talk to her- maybe she knew what had happened. Why everything in the town was suddenly so strange.
As he read the little addresses engraved on the identical mailboxes, a house just ahead of him suddenly broke open. Light spilled out of the crevices of the bottom floor, dancing along the dead grass and sending lines down the dark street. A window that stretched from what seemed to be the floor to the ceiling revealed a woman. A woman woman, not a student. Not a teenager. A grown woman.
She had the same strawberry-blond hair as his Cosette, but she was taller. Her hips were fleshier, and when she turned just a little, her chest was significantly larger. She held a glass of rose in her hand as she gazed in a mirror that sent more flashes of light to the darkness outside.
The woman reached for something that sat on a table, and slid it into her hair. It was a layered, translucent veil, embroidered with little flowers and lace. It suited Cosette- his Cosette, but this couldn't be her. This wasn't the same five-year-old that clung to his hand when they were locked in a closet by the meaner kids in the foster home. Not the same child he held on his shoulders, or the one he tutored through middle school, or the one that cried when he graduated high school because she thought he'd go off to Paris.
The woman's eyes met his in the mirror, and she started, covering her mouth. But before she did, he saw her mouth "Enjolras".
His heart thundered in his chest. He didn't know how it was possible, but this was Cosette. Maybe she could help him.
He ran to the front door and knocked, expecting her to answer immediately. She didn't come to the door. He knocked again, then pressed his ear to the wood. He heard her slow, shuffling steps. She was coming, but she was coming really slowly.
"Cosette?" he called. There was no response. "Cosette? Open the door!"
He banged, hard. "Please! Open the door! I need to talk to you!"
"No!" she cried, her voice muffled. "Go away! Leave me alone!"
"Cosette?" he let his fists fall away from the door. On the other side, she was beating it.
"GO AWAY. GO AWAY. Go away."
His heart finally cracked. He didn't cry. He was not a crier, and yet tears burned in his eyes.
Why was this happening? Why? What... what the hell was going on?
Dizzy, disoriented, and heartbroken, Enjolras sat on the road.
I'm in hell.
"Hey, 'Chetta, if you want to go home I can close up," Grantaire said, nodding at the empty Corinthe. It was littered with debris from the rush, and the jukebox was still dejectedly playing a tune for the two people left behind at closing time.
"Really?" she asked. He nodded, smiling and ruffling her wild hair.
She tried to smile back, but she was just exhausted. The strange silence in her head lasted only so long, and when it was over suddenly there was nothing but noise. Cries of pain and confusion, screams of realization. She couldn't pick out any singular voices.
Musichetta trotted down the hill upon which the Corinthe was mounted, and followed the winding path through the tunnel that went under the roads. The orange lights flickered as she hurried through, passing by a form in a hoodie as she did. The tunnel suddenly seemed to lengthen, and her panic seized her. She wasn't going to make it out of this concrete pathway.
Suddenly, someone grabbed her and slammed her against the wall. Her head cracked against the graffiti-ed concrete, and the world went hazy. She couldn't make out the face of her attacker as he wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed.
She hadn't the energy to fight back, and all she could do was wrap her hands around his wrists. He had eyes. Strangely kind eyes.
She held no anger towards him. In the last few moments before everything went black, she knew two things:
he didn't understand that he was hurting her, and his name was Bossuet.
Oh yikes! So now we know that the dead don't know they're dead, and also Musichetta has been attacked! What will happen next?
Also, shout out to shadows-of-1832, astoryinred, guest, and MiserableRenthead for your reviews! I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)
Please review! I will try and have the next installation out within the next few days.