Azelma had opened her eyes long before the door opened and the place was flooded with the smell of rum. It was especially strong tonight, it made her nostrils burn and she had to hold back a sneeze. She didn't want to wake anyone up. From her bed she had to make no effort to listen, for her father's voice rose like a wild beast's roar as he slammed the door shut.

"You think this is a game!" He shouted, as Azelma tiptoed towards the entrance of the room, finding a spot where she could see without being seen.

"You think we're just fooling around, waiting for gold to drop from the sky and smack you in that big head of yours, huh?" He was holding Éponine by the wrist with such strength that the girl was slightly raised from the ground.

Azelma squinted, noticing in the dark that both, her sister's dress and her father's chemise, were smeared with something.

"If a big fish tells us to do it, we do it!" Monsieur Thérnadier threw Éponine to the ground, and stumbled towards her as she crouched in the corner barely making an attempt to cover her face with her hands. As he moved, the man landed on a small fragment of light that came from the window. Azelma gasped silently, realizing the strange stain was blood. Was that his? Was that Éponine's? Azelma wondered, her heart pounding violently as she saw her father remove his belt and holding it in his hands.

"We don't ask anything!" He barked, striking Éponine with the belt every time he ended a sentence "We don't ask who! We don't ask why! We don't ask nothing! You ungrateful brat! You almost cost me everything tonight! You! You whore! This. Is. Life. Now. I shouldn't have let your mother spoil you so much! "

The man stopped, tossing the belt on the ground, and Azelma wondered why Éponine had not moved from her spot. Her older sister usually replied between clenched teeth, or moved to a side, or for the very least looked up, but not this time. Éponine was fixed on her place, still covering her face, waiting for the next strike. Azelma watched, her knees were shacking, her cheeks were red, and she feared tears would slide down her own face each time she heard the belt cracking, like a horse whip.

"You're lucky I'm tired. Now go, out, out of my sight" He stumbled towards the wooden table and sat down, while Éponine stood up slowly.

Azelma didn't recognize her sister, not because of the black eye or the bloody nose, but because she moved like a wounded bird after it has fallen from the nest. Startled, dazed, she crawled towards the room. Éponine stumbled past Azelma without even noticing her sister had been there looking the whole time, and lay down on her improvised bed without saying a word. Azelma wanted to talk to her, but she didn't know what to say, in the middle of everything she hadn't realized her own knees were trembling. The girl stood there in silence, shifting her gaze between her father, seated at the table sucking what was left from the old bottles, and her sister crouched into a small ball on the corner. Kill a man? Had her father said that? That would explain the blood, but in her young heart she refused to believe it meant what it meant. It was probably a term for something else, Azelma told herself, around there everyone talked with odd words, it was probably just a common robbery gone sour.

In silence, Azelma moved towards the place where Éponine was laying. Her sister was not crying, her eyes were wide open, fixed on the wall. Unable to think of anything else, Azelma placed the old blanket over her sister and then curled into a little ball to rest next to her, their backs barely touching. When she woke up the next morning, she found herself covered by the blanket while her sister was gone.

Of course she loved Azelma too, but there was nothing like the first born. That feeling, holding the baby for the first time. She was so small and clueless, and in all honesty kind of ugly. Ugly, like most babies are at first, but this was a good kind of ugly. Once she continued growing, those features would slightly form a different face. Madame Thérnadier wondered often if her daughter would look like her as she grew older. For Éponine's sake she hoped so. But in even at the beginning, even before that face began taking a definite look, madame found herself smiling every time she looked at her baby. After all, it was her own. So small and fragile, like a little porcelain doll. Last night, madame Thérnadier had been thinking about those first days, when the pain was finally giving way to consciousness and she was able to hold her daughter.

She had been awaken by the slamming door last night and pretended to sleep as her husband made his way to the bed. He seemed to be sweating rum and he did fall briefly before crawling to the bed in the dark room. He didn't say a word, but he did try to embrace her, she didn't have to make much to dodge his moves, after a moment he had fallen asleep facing down, drooling in the pillow. But madame Thérnadier wasn't able to fall asleep again. Now as the first birds sang outside and the purple sky slowly gave way to the morning glow, madame was seated at the table trying to remember the alternate name she had thought for her baby, she hadn't come up with it when suddenly a woman stepped out of the room.

Color seemed to drain from madame's face as she saw her daughter. She had heard the ruckus, but she couldn't have imagined it had been so bad, after all Éponine had remained silent through it all. Éponine's right eye was completely swollen and black, madame figured her daughter was probably unable to see through it. Two rivulets of dry blood stretched from under her nostrils, they circled her mouth and stretched all the way to her chin. Her hands and chest had received the worst of her father's wrath, and some pink slashes could be seen crossing her skin. Her dress was ruined. Éponine walked across the complex, not even looking at her mother as she let out a simple "morning".

"Morning" Madame Thérnadier was barely able to answer as she watched her daughter open the door and exit the apartment. At the moment she couldn't shake the feeling it was not really Éponine there, but a ghostly apparition.

Éponine closed the door behind her and walked downstairs to knock on the neighbor's door. There was no answer at first, but she knocked consistently, until the woman opened. The robust lady was about to send her early visitor to hell when she took a moment to see Éponine. Immediately her scolding words rolled back into her mouth.

"A bath, I'll pay later."

"Don't worry about that." The woman replied, leading the girl into the complex with a clumsiness that stemmed from a mix of empathy and fear.

The water was cold, of course, but Éponine wouldn't want it any other way. She submerged her head completely and raised it from the water, feeling her nose and right eye burn. She scrubbed her arms and legs and washed the dirt under her nails. She had lingered for a moment on the water, struggling to scrub the dry blood that had sprinkled on her chest after the night's incident. A stranger's blood. A dead man's blood. It was gone now, but she could still feel it, sticky, warm, dripping down slowly like a snail. She scrubbed harder and harder until one of the scratches caused by her father's belt opened and began bleeding, real blood, her own. She looked down at the small droplets that fell from her chest as they mixed with the dirty water bellow, and for the first time since last night, she allowed herself to cry. It was brief though, for her bad eye began to sting.

She splashed some of the clean water that the woman had left at the side in an old pot and cleaned her face. She stood up carefully, taking a moment to detail her wounds. The bruise on her chest, the one that had started to heal, was worse, and a similar one had appeared near her knee, she wasn't sure why or when. The scratches would be easy to cover, but there was nothing to do about the eye. She changed into her dress and realized she would need another one. New or otherwise, who cared, who cared about anything anymore. Dresses, shoes, remedies for lice, madelaines, sunsets, it didn't matter. Clean or dirty, bought or stolen, it meant nothing.

Two types of people, just two types, that was all.

She thanked the woman and left the apartment with the same bluntness with which she had arrived.

So this is life now, Éponine thought as she made her way into the cold streets by herself. This is my life now.

I had this story finished and sitting in my computer for a very VERY long time, almost four years. I was planning on rewriting it, but I just decided to post it, and finish the story. I had forgotten how...sad, it was.

In any case, thank you for making it this far.

Any comment, question, insult, suggestion, etc is welcomed.