Chicago
South Side
March 1st, 1992
Elodie stalks the aisles of the small shoe store, fingers tracing the steel shelving as she feigns interest in the numerous low-priced running shoes. Most, if not everything, is a knock off to some extent - backwards Nike check marks and crude reimaginings of the Adidas stripes litter the shelves.
The riot grrrl wannabe has already claimed her prize, of course, she just has to wait for the guy at the cash register to stop giving her the stink-eye. Guess that’s what she gets for sticking out like a sore thumb - her hair gelled into stiff spikes, black clothes ripped to shreds both on purpose and because they’ve been through some shit over the years.
She looks exactly like the kind of person who’s about to bolt out the door without paying and, well, that’s exactly what she does. Shoebox secured under her arm, she sprints as fast as she can as the bell over the door chimes with her swift exit.
“Come back here you fucking bitch!” The owner screams after her, trying to keep up with her pace but falling out of breath as Elodie zips down the street and out of view, wind in her spikes.
As soon as the coast is clear she takes off her old shoes, the soles of which barely cling to life and have holes where her toes have outgrown them and started poking out. She revels in the feel of her new kicks fitting her like a glove and looking like a good enough knock off of old school Vans to trick anyone who doesn’t know any better.
Elodie wanders the streets of Chicago until she ends up back at her home, if you could deign to call it that. Other vagrant teens huddle together outside abandoned storefronts, sharing food and stories as they try to bite off the crisp spring chill.
Everyone has their story, of course, but they all know they have more in common than they have differences so the details hardly ever matter.
All of them are runaways, kids who couldn’t stand their home life enough to stick around. Most from broken homes, some from families who said they cared but were never good at showing it. Some from families who hated them enough to throw them out, thought their child was better off on the streets than queer or using under their roof.
Some were like Elodie - problem children who could never find anyone who wanted them enough to put up with their fits of rage or destructive, rebellious nature. Elodie spent too much of her life in and out of the psych ward for any family to want to keep her around for long. After
biting some guys ear off at sixteen she was institutionalized for months on end - which might have been better than juvie to some, sure. But with no home to come back to, she ended up here instead. Stealing shoes just to keep her feet warm.
Now, she slides up to her buddy Steven. She can’t remember why he’s here, but he hasn’t been around long. And looking at how he’s getting by, probably won’t be around much longer.
“Nice shoes, dude.” He says, teeth chattering. Who knows what he’s on today.
“Watch out if you’re ever around that shoe place with the ugly green sign. He chased me for a full block. Next time he sees someone our age, it’s on sight.” Elodie says, grabbing for Steven’s cold and shaking hands to try and warm them up.
“You still g-got your old pair?”
Elodie unsheathes the shoes from under her arm and hands them over. They definitely won’t fit him, but his eyes light up anyways with a yellowed grin to match. Something is always better than nothing around here.
“All yours, man.”
“You’re the best! Here, Jackson gave me a few smokes the other day for sucking his dick.” Steven probably needs the cigarette more than she does - Elodie always has her plugs, knows the places that sell to minors for cheap - but there’s no such thing as an unfair trade around here. Love thy neighbor and all that jazz.
She lights up the cigarette with the one match that hasn’t been ruined from being dropped in a puddle, snuggling up to Steven and sharing body heat until they manage to fall asleep.
A few weeks later, Elodie doesn’t see Steven again. She always hopes for the best, but it usually turns out to be the worst. Few people last long out here.
She just hopes to make the most of what little she’s got.
September 24th, 1994
Probably the worst way to make money in Chicago is in the squeegee “business”, if you could even call it that. Elodie has heard of kids in Canada and Baltimore making enough bank to actually be deemed a problem in the city, but here, few give you the time of day and most just want to run you over.
She’s started schmoozing up to local biker gang lately, hoping she can get into dealing with them instead of standing on a curbside all day just praying to make enough for the McDonald’s value menu.
There’s been someone new hanging out at the stoplight and it’s got Elodie more curious than territorial. She knows all the homeless punks around here, and at first Elodie figured them for a fully grown, employed adult with the way they stand over 6 feet tall. But after keeping an eye on them for a few hours, she eventually clocked them for just another disillusioned squeegee kid.
They have way too much of a polite manner for someone looking to swindle idiots for cleaning their windshield at a stoplight, always awkwardly apologizing when they get told off or aggressively honked at.
It’s sweet, but Elodie has an eye for when someone needs to be shown the ropes if they’re gonna survive.
Hell, with that height and jawbone, this guy could easily pass for being over twenty-one and it always helps to have a buddy who won’t get carded. Squeegee holstered, Elodie hustles over to greet a new friend.
And with both their palms stained with the black ink of their names, Elodie makes a quiet vow to keep them safe.
May 14th, 1995
Like any good government institution, the foster home kicked Maude onto the street for their eighteenth birthday with little more than sixty bucks and a backpack full of belongings. It took a couple weeks until they got used to sleeping on a pile of tattered, mildew-ridden blankets but now they snooze somewhat soundly next to Elodie - long legs curled to their chest as rain ricochets off the tin awning above them.
Elodie has seen a lot of bright-eyed kids fumble through the early stages of homelessness, watched them wrestle with losing comforts they never even realized they took for granted their whole lives. It takes time to learn how to survive instead of just simply living. But not one of them has ever taken to it as well as Maude.
They’re so smart and resourceful that it’s almost maddening. When the two of them have eaten nothing but vienna sausages for a week straight, Maude doesn’t complain - no, instead they prowl fast food joints for sauce packets so they can shake up the flavor. When they started sleeping outside this abandoned RadioShack, Maude was the one who discovered that one loose brick they use to hide all their important shit behind.
And someone special like that… well, they deserve a whole lot better than this.
Elodie’s got a plan. She’s saved up a bit of cash, still a ways to go, but a decent start towards a security deposit. If she can just scrounge together a few hundred bucks, the two of them can get an actual roof over their heads. And maybe with a working shower, real jobs won’t be too far out of reach.
As far as Elodie’s concerned, Maude doesn’t know she’s been slinging for the Scramblers. Well, at least they haven’t made it obvious if they have figured it out. So far she’s just been dealing a bit of dope, but the cut she gets from that is dogshit. Elodie thinks that if she can just get her hands on something harder… maybe her grand plan won’t be so longterm. They could have an apartment before Maude ever has to learn the unforgiving chill of winter.
Elodie slips away from Maude’s sleeping form, leaving behind her black beaded bracelet and a cigarette - their universal sign for don’t worry, be back soon.
…
Dinah, the leader of the Southside Scramblers, is the exact kind of woman you’d expect to be at the top of a small-time biker gang in Chicago. Always dressed in a leather jacket and jeans with any inch of exposed skin covered in tattoos and hinting at many more underneath her clothes. Her graying hair is slicked back, her pierced eyebrow raised inquisitively as she looks to the much younger Elodie standing in front of Dinah’s favorite table at her second favorite bar, the Fat Lion.
Elodie tosses a bundle of cash, what’s a seemingly measly amount of tens and twenties, but she’s only been allowed to peddle an equivalently measly amount of weed. Dinah counts the bills approvingly, passing back a handful to Elodie. Fifty bucks isn’t that bad of a cut all things considered. But Elodie knows she’s worth so much more.
“Good work, doll. Come back next week when those guys have smoked themselves dry,” Dinah says in her raspy voice, like she chews through steel just to get a word out.
“When are you going to give me something harder to sell?” Elodie’s been at this for a few months now, scraping by on a pittance when she’s sure she can be doing better. It’s all because Dinah is too much of a softie to let her at anything worth more. Even just doubling her current stoner customer base would give Elodie a real chance to get on her feet, but no. Dinah’s got too many motherly bones in her body.
“You’re cute, hun, but there’s no way I’m letting you at any more than this.”
Cute. Elodie’s not fucking cute. No one who’s ever seen Elodie when she’s angry would dare call her cute, and if Dinah doesn’t cut the shit then she’s really going to lose it.
“Why? I can handle it. I’ve been doing great so far, you’ve said so yourself.”
“Yeah, doing great at selling half an ounce to a handful of single parents and college kids. You know what happens to me if you drop that half an ounce down a drain? Run off and smoke it all yourself? I don’t lose much. Just a bit of change and few already broke customers. Say I gave you a sack of blow - then I’m out thousands of cash and a lot of angry people on my doorstep. It’s not happening,” Dinah’s stern, unwavering. But Elodie knows it's a sack of shit. Where would Elodie even run to if she stole a bunch of drugs? She lives on a fucking sidewalk.
“Fuck you, I told you I can take care of it.”
“Watch your language. I know you’ve seen a lot of shit, but you’re still just a kid. It’s one thing dealing with some stoned college asshole, it’s a whole other thing to be chasing money from someone tweaking out of their mind.”
“I’m twenty years old, almost twenty-one! I’m not some kid! Just treat me like an actual fucking adult for once. I can take care of myself and I can sure as hell hold my own in a fight.”
“Don’t you threaten me. I said what I said. Now get out of here before you really piss me off.”
“Fuck this. Fuck you.”
Dinah waves her hand dismissively, and Elodie nearly lunges at her but knows she wouldn’t get halfway across the table without a broken arm. Instead she marches out the backdoor to have a smoke and try to cool off before she smashes something she can’t afford to replace.
As she tries to flush the rage from her system, she catches the tail-end of a conversation between two Scramblers in studded leather smoking right next to her.
“Yeah, kid owes us a shit ton of money. Keeps saying it’s coming but he’s drip-feeding us his allowance,” says one of them without realizing he should definitely be keeping his voice down.
“Allowance? How old is this guy?”
“I dunno, eighteen or so? Apparently he’s got some nice, middle class parents but got himself into some deep shit. Now he’s hanging around the Southside and swindling us out of shit he can’t afford. Dinah’s too soft to teach him a lesson, but if you ask me, someone’s gotta rough him up.”
“Who is it?”
“I dunno, Craig Thomas? I think that was it.”
“Man, why is it always the guys with two first names?”
Shit. Elodie knows him. He hangs around with some of her friends that use in that shithole crackhouse she usually tries to stay away from, for her own good.
But if she can get through to him, Dinah definitely can’t ignore her potential then. This just might be her golden ticket. If all it takes is a couple bruises on some pretty boy to get her the cred she needs then it’s well worth trying.
…
Elodie throws Craig against the brick wall of the alleyway. She’s shorter than him, but she’s way stronger so it takes little effort to get him pinned. Especially when he’s high off his ass and can barely stand up straight to begin with.
“What the fuck do you want, bitch?” His breath is foul against her face, hands clamoring to try and push her off but she’s got her forearm tight against his neck and her body weight firm against his.
“You owe the Scramblers. Pay up or I beat your ass.”
“I don’t owe you shit. You’re not even one of them. You’re just some fucking girl.”
Her eye twitches and she feels the spark of rage start to well up in her gut, that same feeling that comes right before she does something that gets her sent away. That feeling like she’s indestructible and someone’s begging her to prove it.
She knees him in the balls with as much force as she can muster. He groans, a litany of fucks tumble out of his mouth as he coughs through the pain. He goes to collapse but Elodie keeps him upright against the wall, body firmly in place.
“You wanna call me that again?” She growls, presses her arm more firmly against his neck until he’s just on the precipice of choking.
He laughs weakly, smugly, face twisted in a stupid smirk she wants to pummel. “Fuck you, cunt. You’re not getting shit.” He spits right on her cheek.
Fuck this.
Elodie reaches for her switchblade, and Craig’s eyes go wide with alarm as she brings out the hunk of metal, moving to unsheathe the knife to hold against his throat and - fuck. Shit. That’s not a blade, thats a lockpick. She grabbed the wrong one. Fuck.
The prick chuckles again when he sees it, cockiness clouding his panic. “What you gonna do? Poke me to death? Pussy.”
Elodie jams the pick against his side but even her full force does little against the cushioning of his weight, maybe just enough to bruise. Craig let’s out an ough but the smirk stays firm on his face.
“So?” He coughs out, “We done here now?”
Blood boils under Elodie’s skin, adrenaline coursing through her body. She’s so fucking mad. Her vision goes red like a bull to a matador.
Slowly, she lifts the lockpick up, up, up along his body, gliding it across his chest, neck, up his face, until it’s right in front of his eye.
It takes a moment, but it’s evident once the fear consumes the guy’s face. All colour drains, eyes growing wide, veiny before the threatened eye winks shut. As if not looking at the pick will help it disappear. He scrambles against her weight, but she’s stronger, more adept than him now that he’s been beaten a bit, and she easily keeps his body locked against the brick wall.
“You w-wouldn’t. C’mon. That’s fucking - that’s fucking twisted. You can’t!” The words come out stuttered and scared, bravado washed away and replaced with hysterics.
Elodie’s grip tightens. The cold metal of the pick presses against his eyelid, pressure light, threatening. A small press and he’d be blinded for life. A harder press and it might just kill him.
It’s a funny thing, to have someone’s life in your hands. Elodie hasn’t given much thought to how fragile people can be. She’s seen people battered, starving, frost bitten to death - but that was always out of her hands. A power she’s never possessed. Here, now, she has the power to break someone. To ruin a life. To take a life.
And yet all she feels is rage.
He screams, loud and guttural. The kind of scream that would have people in any decent city rushing out to help. In Chicago, windows are shuttered and doors are locked shut.
She twists the pick in his eye, all sorts of liquid gushing from his face - blood mixed with whatever else the body produces for this kind of trauma response. He falls weak against the wall and she let’s his body drop, screaming and crying as he collapses to the floor and clutches at his eye.
Elodie won’t let him breathe and starts kicking and pummeling at his curled up body. She’s not just a girl, she’s a fucking force of nature.
“Don’t.” Kick. “Fuck.” Kick. “With me.” Kick, kick, kick.
He cries for his mom until he’s too weak, body too full of blood, bruises and broken bones to find the energy for screaming any longer. Elodie keeps beating him until he’s completely silent, until the anger floods from her fists and feet and all she’s left with is a hollow heart and the guilt of what she’s just done.
She checks for a pulse.
Nothing.
The lockpick has fallen out of his eyesocket, blood and puss draining out where the optical nerve hangs loose. His face is barely recognizable, swollen, bruised and malformed like he was never a person at all.
She goes for his wallet, pockets the cash he had the whole time. The whole fucking time. He could have just paid.
All she can think to do is run. No time for thoughts of what will happen when they find the body, of the family that will go looking for whoever did this, of the very real possibility she’ll be locked up for a long, long time when they find her. No time to think about a real person, eighteen, just a kid, whose life she took.
In reality, the cops will wave it off as just another low-life addict getting what they deserved for falling into the wrong side of town.
For now, Elodie wipes off the blood as best she can with her last moist toilette; knuckles stained red as they wrap around Maude’s sleeping body, squeezing them tight and promising softly to stay by their side as long as she can.
