The Early Years
Marley was born on April 9, 1984 to Edward and Maria St. Andrews in Miami just six months after the young couple's whirlwind courtship and marriage. The couple met at a social soiree in Rochester, Minnesota hosted by Maria's then, fiancée Josef Karlen, and instantly became smitten by the brash entrepreneur. The affair caused a bit of a scandal as Maria was the only daughter of Dr. Augustus Navarro, chief surgeon at the Mayo Clinic at the time and well-known scholar in the field of neurological surgery.
Upon news of his daughter's affair, the elder Navarro disowned the girl which only sought to cast her further into the arms of her multi-racial lover. Edward and Maria were wed and shortly after welcomed their newborn infant, Marlena (named for her maternal grandmother) into their small family.
Having been cast out by his own family a few years before, Edward chose to settle in Miami with his new wife and daughter to build a fresh start. If there was one thing Edward was good at, it was turning a financial investment. Unfortunately both he and his young wife were quite accustomed to living high upon society and spared little expense in continuing their lifestyle despite the lack of assistance from the families - leaving very little left for savings of any sort.
Marlena had a fairly happy childhood, at least in the beginning. She attended public school and was always a sociable child. While most of her classmates considered her fortunate to have such interesting and fun parents, Marley didn't always agree. In fact, most of the time Edward and Maria were so enraptured by each other and their passions for the finer things that they tended to forget little Marlena existed at all. She never really felt unloved, merely replaceable whenever something newer and more chic came along. As a result, she learned to go through the motions of playing the role of the dutiful daughter when home - and focused her attentions on trying to make sure that her classmates and other peers genuinely liked being around her.
Everything changed not long after Marlena's eleventh birthday when she fell ill. Routine blood work revealed her to be blood type AB negative. It would not have been an issue at all if it hadn't been for her father being the one present that afternoon in the doctor's office. Edward insisted there had to be a clerical error as there was no way his daughter could be AB negative when he was O positive. After a series of arguments and threats, more tests were run only to reveal the same result. By this point, Edward was livid with his wife, suddenly feeling deceived after having spent the past eleven years raising some stranger's daughter as his own.
The next year of Marlena's life was tainted with series of tempestuous events as she witnessed the downward spiral of her parents' marriage her relatively easy life. No longer having the envy of her friends or classmates Marley became the girl they eyed out of pity: her parents' voices and fights were often heard by those out on the street below. Her father took to drinking incessantly as he began to squander more and more of their money away on high priced investments and overpriced liquors. Meanwhile, her mother would take to wearing her best clothing and jewelry in order to leave the house - sometimes vanishing for days on end. Marlena tried her best during these times to be especially obedient, so as to not stir the issues any further. However, no matter how hard she tried, the young girl could not escape the feeling that her parents were deliberately trying to forget she even existed.
The night of December 24, 1995 proved to be a Christmas Eve Marlena would never forget. Having gone to bed early in anticipation of the arrival of Saint Nick, she awoke to the sound of several soft thumps downstairs. Thinking it the cherub gift-bearer, she snuck out of bed and slid down to rest on the steps overlooking their main room. Visions of presents and sweets and hopes for a reconciled family over the coming year were instantly shattered as she watched her parents in the middle of their most brutal fight. The crash of glass followed by the sound of gunfire caused the young girl to stand up and cry out as she ran to the side of her falling mother already too late. No matter how much she tried to stop the bleeding from the hole piercing Maria's side, there was just too much. Within a few moments later, the gun echoed again as her father took his own life with the nozzle pressed within his drunken mouth. When the authorities arrived nearly fifteen minutes later, they found the young girl eerily unresponsive and covered in her parent's blood still trying to save them despite the fact their bodies were beyond repair.
The authorities labeled the deaths as a murder-suicide and closed the case as Marlena spent the next year of her life bounced from one American relative to the next on her father's side. Given the rather gruesome demise of her parents, significant psychological damage done to poor Marley herself, and the massive amount of debt left in their wake — no one appeared to really want the added burden of the young adolescent. While many of her relatives wanted to help in theory, none seemed capable of coping with the insurmountable situation and it was not long before Marlena was eventually made a ward of the state of Florida.
Teen Years
The death of her parents and abandonment of family had left deeply rooted scars upon the young girl causing her to detach from the world around her. The psychiatrist called it a classic case of dissociative personality disorder, but mostly it just aided Marlena in surviving. She started to lash out at others, sometimes for no reason at all and many times simply to grant them a share of the pain she could not really seem to harness within herself. Foster families were few and far between for the multi-racial child. Not long after her fourteenth year, she was placed with a family that would shatter the last shreds of her innocence forever.
Unable to defend herself, she endured the nightly visits from her foster father - all sense of feeling detaching from her during the episodes, yet never quite forgotten. Though she knew it was wrong, unnatural, she could not find the voice to speak out against her 'new father'. Instead, she learned to cope and compartmentalize the horrors of the situation with all her other pain? tucked neatly away in a little box insider until such a time as she might have a better way of dealing with it.
For nearly six months she endured the countless nights of abuse, until she eventually snapped. Caring little for the consequences, Marley helped herself to his Mercedes and drove off in the middle of the night. She made it all the way to Philadelphia before she was eventually apprehended at a gas station. Given the nature of the crime, Marley was placed in Juvenile detention center. Her former foster parents relinquished all ties to the young woman, once more returning her guardianship to the state.
Time spent in a detention center can prove to be valuable and Marley learned quickly a variety of skills from her various companions fit for a life of survival upon one's own. It was around that time she began to discover her unique talent for manipulating and afflicting pain upon others. While others might have been abhorred at the prospect of her unique talent, for Marley it was like a godsend and finally something she could use to protect herself against any and all threats. Get them before they get her first, seemed to be her mentality, and her rare gift afforded her the ability to survive amid her peers - many of which were in for more severe reasons than simple Grand Theft Auto. At the conclusion of her time, she was again thrust back into the Foster system. However a multi-racial child has a hard enough time with adoption - but add to it one with known issues who happens to have a criminal record to boot and well, success was obsolete.
With her eighteenth year vastly approaching, Marlena had grown tired of the system and wanted out. Once more, she fled in the middle of the night and took up residence on the streets. She spent the next several years working a series of odd-jobs simply to get by, squatting in abandoned buildings or rail cars and stealing when the need arose. Wanting so desperately to shed the skin of her former life, she changed her name from 'Marlena St. Andrews' to Vivienne Quinn. From solicitation, to theft, to even the occasional job as an 'enforcer' for mild street criminals, Marley had dabbled in it all.
Adult Years
By the time her twenty-second year had rolled around, she had lived a lifetime over filled with petty crimes, odd jobs, and far too many victims to recall. Yet no matter how many times she lashed out at others, it never seemed to dull the throb of the pain that continued to overflow within her. She longed for a purpose, some way or means to justify what she had become. No amount of drugs could ever dull the pain or rid her of the nightmares filled with the faces of her victims and all those who had hurt her throughout the years.
When the bomb detonated in New York, Marley finally realized she was not quite alone in her suffering. In fact, she actually sort of pitied the poor son of a bitch who did it. Yet it by no means inspired her to line up for registration. As far as she was concerned the whole process was merely nothing more than yet another way for someone to ultimately fuck her over. However, the whole aftermath did prompt her to adopt a slightly more legit lifestyle, one where perhaps she did not have to be as blatant with her 'freakish' ability.
So when her oldest and dearest friend, and fellow Foster care survivor, Izzy sent word of a position opening up for a bartender in her city a few years later - she took her up on the offer. After all, if not for 'Saint Isabelle' and her intervention, Marley may have put a bullet into her own brain some time ago. Besides, she's grown tired of hiding and skulking in shadows, at least for now.
