LES DÉSCENDANTS

~Chapter 10: Un Sauvetage (A Rescue)~

(A/N: I just had to use my favorite new Billie Eilish song in this chapter, and I found a way to do it, yay!)

~Vail POV~

Grasping the new artifact in my hand, I spoke to it: "I wish to fulfill your destiny, and save Enjolras, while staying safe ourselves."  In Grantaire's empty apartment, the words rang hollow.

"Woah-kay, that thing is glowing," spoke up Montparnasse, as I turned the new artifact over in my hands.

"Give me your hand," I interrupted, annoyed.  I had almost forgotten I still had to deal with him.

He blinked, quickly covering up his surprise with a smirk.  "Well, now, feeling friendlier-?"

"Just.  Do it!" I hissed.  "We need the contact to get to Enjolras."

"So.  You need me."

"I don't know what game you're playing," I hissed, pulling my hand away in disgust.  "But no, actually.  I don't."

I blinked, and I was in another world.

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The City boy was nowhere to be seen.  I huffed and crossed my arms.  All men were the same - arrogant, only out for themselves...for one moment, I was angry at Avenir.  Why did she feel they needed Enjolras for everything?  Couldn't they do it just as easily by themselves?  They had so much strength within themselves that they didn't even see...yet I saw it.  She was a warrior, and she had it within her to fix everything all by herself...Enjolras or no Enjolras.  All she needed was to realize it.

I took a moment to let these thoughts evaporate from my head.  My loyalty was to the Unnamed, and without Avenir, we had no future.  If Av would feel better with Enjolras awake - and if Grantaire had sent City boy to get the artifact to me, it had to be done.  I felt it within me that "waking up" Enjolras, whatever that meant, was the right thing to do.

I stood, and searched my surroundings.  I was on the floor, and based on the feeling I felt in the pit of my stomach and the feeling on the concrete beneath me, I recognized that I was once again in the Parisian dungeon where we had found Enjolras after his memory had been wiped.  The artifact had brought me right there.

I felt a burst of overwhelming pain as my eyes got used to the darkness - a pain which meant danger.  Hurry.

Crawling on my knees, I crawled to where the pain hit the worst, and I doubled over, tears threatening to fly from my eyes.  Sometimes the gift I had been given at birth - to have such a high intuition into what was safe and what was deadly - such strong feelings and perceptions became a blessing and a curse.  I knew that Enjolras would lie where the most pain was - where it was the most dangerous.

The artifact lit the way, pulsating faster and faster - seemingly to the rhythm of my own heartbeat.  It brought me to a cell where five soldiers were guarding, alert and with weapons at the ready.  Now that Avenir wasn't here to stop time, I would be caught within seconds.

"Trust in the magic," they would have said, had they been here.  My intuition said to hurry and...slip through the bars.  An impossible feat, especially since I couldn't even get to a standing position.

"Who's there?" whispered a guard, and he shone his flashlight directly in my face.  I froze, putting my hands up...

"Nobody's there," snarled the guard next to him.  "Stop being paranoid."

"I sense fear," the first guard commented.

"Oh, please," chortled a third guard.  "We all know you're scared of the dark."