Elise "Queenie"
Elise was born October 15, 1978, in Tuscon, Arizona, to Tamara and Edgar Harrison, a young couple who already had two daughters and a fine household. Edgar was a successful lawyer in the area, and his bills payed for their comfortable lifestyle. However, it was soon after Elise's birth that they discovered Edgar had an inoperable tumor, and his chances of living were slim. Still, the family somehow managed to make things work, despite the almost overwhelming doctor bills and Edgar's failing health.
Finally, only a month before Elise's fourth birthday, her father passed away, leaving his three daughters and loving wife crushed. Tamara became immensely depressed, eventually even suicidal, and determined her family was nothing without Edgar. She took her three small daughters into the garage, piped the muffler into the window, and shut herself and the children inside with the engine running.
Elise was never quite sure what happened after that. Somehow, the small child realized she was dying and slipped out of the car after her mother had passed out. The neighbors discovered her in the driveway and rushed her to the hospital. There, she was cared for and reported to Child Services. The rest of her family didn't survive.
That was only the beginning of her nightmare. Child Services sent her to a foster home only a few months after her mother's death. As any large institution, CS was very capable of making mistakes, and had failed the background check on this family. The father made up for his tiring, 10-hour-a-day job by coming home and drinking, followed usually by a few hours of screaming at his wife and threatening the young Elise violently. Fortunately, neighbors once again came to her rescue and she was sent back to CS after a few months in that house.
CS attempted to make amends by putting her in another household quickly. They hardly got this one right, though. It belonged to a farming family, and their finances were on the verge of slipping. Every night, her foster father would come home from his farm impatient and exhausted, and his wife would spend most of her time comforting him. The two of them would often fight while Elise tried to sleep upstairs. The day was hardly any better; her foster mother spent so much time fussing around the house and running errands that the five-year-old was left by herself most of the day. When she began to grow thin and ill, the couple realized how little they had to offer the child and sent her back to CS.
Again, she was sent to a foster home, this time one with a loving family. By then, however, Elise was not doing well. She was disciplined at school and placed in a "treatment program" for disturbed children. She tended to threaten the other children in the otherwise loving home, and her foster parents had no idea how to deal with her. Once more, she was returned to CS.
The final home was by far the worst. Again, her foster father was an alcoholic, but he was also physically abusive against his wife and his own children. He was particularly cruel to Elise. Finally, after a few months, one beating sent her to the hospital. Once she had recovered from two broken ribs, a broken arm, and a dis-jointed shoulder, she made a decision not to let the government determine which way her life would go any more. As soon as she was able, she ran away.
Normally, a six-year-old might not be able to survive, but she did it somehow, making it to Dallas within a few months by way of the highways. There, she met a street punk who cared for her and taught her the beginnings of her streetwise. She learned to pick pockets and to find suitable places to sleep. She also learned the beginning techniques of knife and fist fighting, and was soon earning a small reputation in the city. She stayed there for three years until her friend was arrested for drug possession. Once again, she decided to move.
This time, she headed for the East Coast, determined to go as far as she could until she hit the ocean. It took her nearly three years, but she finally reached Boston with nothing more than a small carry-bag with an extra pair of jeans and a tiny knife in it. She found her footing in Boston and decided to make its streets her home.
Not long after her arrival, she was awakened one night in a back alley by four teenage men leering over her. The would-be rapists' intent was obvious. However, the twelve-year-old's furious defense was nothing like what they could have expected. Before they fled, she had broken one's arm and laid plenty of bruises on the rest. Soon, word had gotten out about the fiery young fighter and that she was no one to be screwed with. Her street rep began to grow.
It was only a few months after that that she made a "small mistake" picking a man's pocket in a classier part of Boston. The man turned to find her holding his wallet and became infuriated. He pulled a knife on the child. That was the first person she killed. She managed to disarm him and stabbed the knife through his throat before she ran.
She also established herself as entirely independent, turning her proud nose up at street gangs, and instead helping children she found wandering the streets who shared similar histories as her own. She made it a habit to help these children find a way to survive, either through pickpocketing (which she was now a master of) or by using her street connections to make sure they had a reliable place to stay. Her pride and her host of admiring children, jokingly called her "court," earned her the street tag "Queenie."
The next major incident in her life occurred in early 1993. By then, she had discovered that sleeping during the day and waking at night was much safer on the streets, so lived an almost entirely nocturnal life. It was on one night in the streets of downtown Boston (her usual hang-out) that she met Kyle, known to the street punks as "Chance." The young street punks hit it off almost immediately. Chance was also a pickpocket making his way on the streets, but with Queenie, he began to dream of a better life. They planned to one day go to New York City, get "respectable" jobs, and live normal lives - perhaps even get their high school diplomas. All they needed was the money.
Their plans went well. Soon, they had enough for the first few months' rent and needed only the money to travel. That was when Elise learned of Kyle's dark secret.
She stumbled upon him one night in 1994 in one of their usual alley hang-outs, following the sounds of pained screams and fighting coming from the alley. She found her lover in the midst of several bodies - literally ripped apart. She knew enough about drugs to soon realize that he was OD'd on PCP and going psychotic. He whirled on her in his temporary insanity and attacked. In those days, Elise carried a gun, and emptied eight bullets into Kyle's body before he hit the ground. Horrified, she threw the gun and ran from the alley, never returning to that place again and chalking her lover up as dead. Still, she carried the guilt of his death with her for years after that.