Chapter Twenty Two

The First Attack

Clementine knew what Jehan had told her to do was sensible, but she found that her legs would not move. It was like her feet had been nailed to the cobbles in her feet. All she could do was stare at Jehan, and stare at the revolver in his hand. No matter what she could never, ever picture him using it. It was too violent. He had always been so kind to her – his hands were gentle, his kisses tender, and he was hers, her Jehan. Surely there had to be some better way for he and his friends to make their point. Did it need to end in bloodshed?

Her stomach lurched at the thought. Bloodshed. Their blood being shed, specifically, and Jehan's.

She felt bile rise up her throat at the very thought of Jehan bleeding in any way at all. Her feet moved all of a sudden, stumbling forwards. Her mind was telling her to go back into the café, but her legs were moving of their own accord.

There was some shouting – the tall blond man who had hit the spy with the club – and then a response from someone else, someone she couldn't see.

"FIRE!" she heard, and that was when the world lit up with the deafening sounds of guns cracking through the night's air. She flung her hands up over her ears and found herself crouching, her heart hammering. There was so much noise – the guns and the shouting of the soldiers and the screaming of those already wounded, and she could smell the gunpowder hanging in the air and clinging to the back of her throat, going straight to her stomach.

She was just rising from her crouch when it happened.

Some of the soldiers had climbed the barricade. That is what she noticed in the seconds it took her to rise. Soldiers were climbing the barricades, and they were sticking their guns over the top, and they were firing those guns. Jehan's friends were shooting them back, or hitting them with heavy objects. She couldn't see Jehan in the confusion. She was just looking at him – and just found him – when pain suddenly shot up her leg from her calf.

All of that happened in a matter of moments, and then her legs crumpled beneath her and she was in a heap on the cobblestones. She didn't think she was crying – or was she? She knew her leg hurt – her leg hurt a lot – and the ground was hard and cold and bumpy underneath her. She sat with her legs splayed out. She looked down, her head swimming. Her jeans were stained red. Red…

Everything faded away.

III

Jean's heart was pounding in his chest. The fighting was over – for now – thanks to Marius' quick thinking in grabbing a barrel of gunpowder. Jean's legs felt weak, almost like liquid, as he stumbled down from the barricade. He kept his gun tight in his hand, just in case the fighting started up again so soon.

He had walked two steps before he realised that someone was blocking his way. It was Bahorel, and his face was very serious.

"Jehan," he said, urgently, "Come on."

He grabbed Jean by the arm and began to move him – but Jean looked past him and saw what the emergency was.

Clementine was lying in a heap on the ground – and her trousers, those strange blue trousers – had patches of red all over them. She'd been hit by a bullet, clearly, and there was a flash of anger in him at first at the realisation that she hadn't gone inside the Musain as he'd asked her to.

But the flash of anger gave way to genuine fear, right down to his bones, and he was throwing himself to his knees by her side. She had her head resting on Courfeyrac's lap.

"Is she alive?" Jean demanded.

"Yes," Courfeyrac said, his voice terse. "It hit her in the shin…"

"Where is Joly?" Jean looked around wildly for their friend.

"Look around you – many men have been shot, many with wounds more dangerous than this one," Courfeyrac said. "He's helping everyone."

"But she's bleeding," Jean said, pressing his hands over the patch on her leg where the blood seemed to be darkest.

"Yes, I know." Courfeyrac glanced around. "Maybe – maybe you should leave."

"Leave?" Jean echoed. "I can't –"

"Yes, you can," Courfeyrac said, and Jean felt Bahorel's hand clap heavily on his shoulder. "You need to take her somewhere where she can be treated. This is not the place for Clementine right now, and you know it." He spoke in low, calm tones. "Take her, and stay with her."

"But I'm needed here," Jean spat, torn between the two options.

"She needs you too," Courfeyrac said.

All of a sudden, Jean's mind was filled. Filled with memories from his dreams, dreams before he met Clementine – those dreams of Clementine, walking hand in hand with that man who could have been Jean's twin – of her laughing with him, hugging him, kissing him. In all of those dreams, she was so happy, her face smiling, bright and open. Now she lay there, her face pale and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, bleeding…

If he got her out of here, she could live. And she could go on and be that happy Clementine he dreamed of. That's what he wanted. That was all he wanted for her.

He raised his eyes from Clementine's white, ashen face to meet Courfeyrac's understanding gaze. "No one would blame you," Courfeyrac murmured, and Jean's mind was set.

"How do I leave," he asked, as Courfeyrac inched backwards. He put his hands beneath Clementine's head so that her skull would not collide harshly with the stone ground beneath her.

"Come with me," Courfeyrac said, and with Bahorel's help, Jean scooped Clementine into his arms. He winced internally at the small noise of pain she made when he jostled her leg.

Courfeyrac showed him to a gap near the edges of the barricade. "Be careful how you go," Courfeyrac said. "There will be guardsmen everywhere, and if they think you're involved…" He trailed off, because both of them knew what that would mean.

"Thank you," Jean said. "I'll be back as soon as I can and – and be safe."

Before he could say anything more, Courfeyrac was giving him an awkward, one-armed hug. "But if you're not, Jean Prouvaire, it was an honour to have called you my friend," he said fiercely in his ear. "And I hope that Clementine is all right."

Jean blinked rapidly as his friend pulled away from him, and then turned around to squeeze through the gap and leave the barricade behind.