Purpose

Chapter 2 - The Changes Begin

Her first thought upon waking was, Red. The light is red.

She did not know she was awake, did not know that the red light was merely the sun shining on her closed eyelids, and she was content to lie there, somewhere between consciousness and the darkness that had come before it, marveling at the red light in a distracted, dazed way.

After a while of this, she came to realize that she was waking up, and she tried to swim back to the comforting darkness. Her efforts were in vain, though; consciousness was coming back faster now, and her memories of the night before with it.

Once she and Montparnasse had reached the street in front of the Gorbeau tenement, she had given herself over to his rough, greedy hands as she had planned, but for the first time, he had not been content merely to paw at her chest. He had grabbed her around the waist, tried to reach between her legs through a particularly large hole in her petticoat, and had belted her across the face when she had pushed him away with a frightened, anguished cry.

"Stupid whore," he had growled, grabbing her with savage force just above the elbow. She cried out at the bone-crushing pressure he was exerting, which only made him bear down harder.

He had dragged her, scratching and kicking, up to her parents' filthy room and left her to her father's punishment. It had been every bit as horrible as she had feared, and more. At one point, he hit her with such force that she spun and tripped over her own feet. She had been unable to get her arms out in time to cushion her fall, and had hit the hard wooden floor face-first, taking the brunt of the impact with her chin. For an instant she had been terrified that she had broken off one of her front teeth, but a quick inspection with her tongue had revealed that the tooth was still intact. She had, however, bitten through the scant meat of her upper lip, drawing blood.

It had been the worst hiding of her life, and as she lay on her pallet the next morning, she found that she was in no hurry to come fully awake and begin to deal with the fantastic pain she undoubtedly would be living with for days. She rejected consciousness, and all that came with it – besides the physical pain, there was the humiliation she felt at having been beaten again, the horror that her encounter with Montparnasse had left in her (he had always frightened her, and last night he had raised the stakes in a terrifying game, one that she already hated and had been forced into quite against her will), the soul-crushing misery of another day without bread, another day without warmth, just another day.

"Get up, you lazy bitch," muttered a rough female voice. The voice was very close to her right ear, and Eponine snapped back to full consciousness as the voice's owner -- her mother -- tumbled her roughly off of her pallet and onto the floor. "I'll not have you sleeping the day away like some pampered bourgeoisie bint."

For a moment, Eponine could only lie on the floor, stunned and waiting for the pain from last night's many injuries to come crashing in on her. Long seconds passed, but the pain didn't come. She sat up, dazed, not understanding -- why didn't she hurt? After the beating, she had been half the night getting to sleep, even the slightest movement had brought a flare of pain from her scrapes and bruises, so why didn't she hurt?

The Thenardiess was looking at her eldest daughter in an odd, speculative way, so Eponine made a hasty excuse and fled the room. She ran down the halls and stairways of the Gorbeau building, flew out the door and down the street, gaining speed as she went, bare feet pounding on the cobblestones, a mad exhilaration propelling her legs and blocking all thought. She finally collapsed on a low parapet near the Seine, the breath tearing in and out of her lungs in harsh gasps that were ice on the way down and fire on the way back up.

When her sense had returned a little, she ran her hands wonderingly over her arms and legs. She felt the place where she had punctured her lip. She was miraculously whole; not a trace of last night's savage beating remained. She sat, dumbfounded, trying to rationalize this bizarre (yet welcomed, wonderful) turn of events.

She did not know how long she sat there, cupping her razor-thin elbows in her hands and shivering in the sweat from her crazy dash through the city, before a sound jerked her out of her reverie. For a moment her wild eyes swept the area around her, like those of a hunted animal with its wind up. Then she relaxed as she realized what had shaken her from her daze. It was just church-bells, probably from Notre Dame, marking the hour and calling the faithful to mass.

Notre Dame, she thought. 25 Rue Notre Dame. As if the thought were a key to the floodgates of her confused mind, the memories of the night before -- the ones from before she had been discovered by Montparnasse in the street -- came flooding back in. Sims. The vampires. The changes.

Were these the changes, then? Was this what she was to look for? She was not a stupid girl, and she reasoned that it must be so. Ordinary people didn't heal without a scratch overnight, after all. Was this the only change? Sims had said she would feel different, and while feeling marvelously unhurt certainly was different, she didn't think that was what he had meant, at least not entirely.

Eponine fought to control the chaotic roar of her thoughts. She closed her eyes and focused on the darkness behind her lids, breathing in slow, measured lungfuls of air. Slowly, she replaced chaos with stillness, and as she did, she realized that she did feel different. Her body, usually weak and listless, felt suffused with energy. Though she had run a great distance to get to this spot, she felt fresh and rested, ready to run clear across the city, if that was what was required. The muscles of her arms and legs and torso seemed to be vibrating, a slow and steady thrumming that jangled in her nerve endings. Her mind, which could sometimes be muddled, felt sharp and clear.

A slow, thoughtful grin spread on Eponine's face. It was true. The things Sims had told her last night, the ideas that had filled her with such strong hope, they were true. She had been called, she had a purpose, and as she got slowly to her feet, feeling her muscles thrum with their new life and potential, she found that she could not wait another moment to begin.

Turning in the direction of the Rue Notre Dame, she took off running once again. Ten minutes later, she was knocking frantically on the door to the small house where Sims was staying. He opened the door, and they stared at each other through the cool autumn gloom. After a moment of this, "It's started," was all she said.