6. Max
MAX
F our days ago…
In my shack—basically a hole carved into the wall—Rogue, Kaid, Desta, and I huddled together, our heads bent over a three-legged table pressed against the mud wall. I jabbed a finger at the middle point on the map.
“You sure the map’s accurate?” Desta asked, looking at me instead of the yellowed paper.
Rogue stood to my right, close enough that our shoulders brushed. Lean and wiry. His jaw was sharp, made sharper by hunger. Four blue stripes marked each of his cheeks—he’d followed my lead.
Kaid hovered near Desta, his brown eyes lighter than hers. He watched me too. They were an item, as much as anyone could be in a place like this.
Desta was the only other woman in the mines who’d survived this long. She was small and sharp. Shadows pooled under her eyes, hunger showing through.
We all had the starved look: cheeks hollowed, bones jutting at elbows and collarbones. I didn’t remember ever having a full stomach. Food was rationed, always insufficient, designed to keep us weak enough to control but strong enough to work.
“If Max says it’s the right map, I trust him,” Rogue said, his hazel eyes bright with hope. He was in love with me, despite the fact that I was apparently a “boy.” But there was no place for romance in a pit. “He’s never been wrong. We all know we’re safest with him.”
He meant my uncanny ability. The overseers always placed me in the deepest, most dangerous shafts, but as long as I was there, they never collapsed.
No one knew about my affinity for metal—any metal.
I could sense its location through solid rock, manipulate it with my mind, even transform it with my bare hands if I concentrated hard enough.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my friends.
But it was safer if they didn’t know the real me while we were all slaves.
And I didn’t want them to think of me as a freak, different from them.
My parents had drilled that into me from the moment I could first talk.
I was different from an average human, and humans were always afraid of the unknown.
Fear bred insecurity. Insecurity made people do bad things beyond reason.
They’d turn on you, even if they thought they loved you.
“Max always wins,” Kaid said, pumping his fist in the air.
“Of course. That’s why Max is our leader.
” Desta’s voice carried doubt, though. She’d always sensed something off about me—probably because we were both girls—but she could never figure out what it was.
It helped my case that I was the tallest in the mining camp, much taller than even the tallest men here.
Guilt stabbed at me for deceiving my friends about being a girl. But I’d promised my late parents never to reveal my disguise until I was out of the mines.
If one person outside your family knows your secret, then a dozen people will know it, my mother had said. Your best friends will always tell everything to their best friends.
Secrets don’t keep, my son, my father had added.
“I compared all three maps Missy stole for us from different sources,” I said in my low, raspy voice. “Studied them extensively. They’re nearly identical. I’ve also sorted through all the intel Missy collected from the overseers, guards, and visitors.”
Now and then, the witches from the Pallid Court—the White Witch’s capital in old San Francisco—came to inspect the mining plants and mineral deposits. They were the dangerous kind, but they brought news.
“What if Missy gets caught stealing the maps?” Kaid asked, looking nervously around the small room. There wasn’t much to see, just a small cot I shared with Missy, a bucket in the corner, and the table we huddled around.
“Don’t worry.” Thinking of my brilliant six-and-a-half-year-old sister always made me smile. She was the only one who knew I was her big sister instead of brother. “She returned the other two maps already, unnoticed. You all know she never gets caught.”
The miners weren’t allowed to roam the camp. Not that we had lives on the surface anyway—not after twelve-to-fourteen hours in the tunnels. We slept above ground, and then we went back down into the deep earth.
Missy traveled the mining districts freely. No one bothered guarding her—she was tiny and always had the sweetest smile ready. But the harsh environment had robbed her of innocence too soon, and my sister knew exactly how to weaponize that smile.
Rogue beamed at me. “She’s the best spy we have.”
She’d also proven useful to the overseers with her quick feet, clever mind, and photographic memory.
They often sent her to run errands or pass messages between buildings.
Missy had been gathering intel for us for half a year now.
When she relayed crucial conversations she’d overheard, she’d mimic every accent perfectly. The girl had a gift.
“Best at everything.” I grinned, love and pride warming my chest.
Missy wasn’t my biological sister, but she was more blood than actual blood. She’d been with me ever since her pa was killed in a mining accident. Her ma had died in labor. The girl had no one else but me, another orphan.
Right now, my brave sister was on lookout, crouched behind a boulder outside my shack. If anyone suspicious approached, she’d make the sound of hissing snakes or bats. Both were common enough in the mines that no one would question it.
“Just so you all know,” Desta said, her voice tight with fear, “if we’re caught, they’ll string us up until the crows pick our bones clean. Like they did to the other deserters.”
No miners had ever succeeded in escaping. They were always caught before they got far, assuming they hadn’t been shot down by the guards in the watchtowers.
My face hardened. “We talked about this. There’ll be risks, even after we get out. You have to decide for yourselves. This is your last chance to bow out. It’s okay if you don’t come with me. But I’ll always come back for you. My sister is still here.”
“We’re not bailing!” Rogue’s voice burned with loyalty. “We’re with Max through and through. Five years digging that tunnel for this. We’re in this together.”
They’d joined me on the escape tunnel years ago, but I’d been digging alone long before them—since I was eight.
Right after the mine collapsed and buried my parents. I’d gone to the deepest shaft no other miners dared enter. They claimed it was cursed. I’d stayed underground, digging for three straight days until my fingers bled. I never found them.
When I finally emerged, covered in coal and metal dust, the miners called me “mine-gods blessed child.” The one who survived what killed everyone else. Even the overseers believed it.
They sent me down to replace my parents the next day.
In the beginning, I dug the escape tunnel out of grief.
To honor my parents’ dream for me to live as a free woman.
I almost gave up once. Then Missy came to live with me, and I started again—for her.
My free-spirited sister should never grow up a slave, living like a rat underground.
And I couldn’t bear to think what would follow when she became a young woman.
It was killing me to leave her behind. Missy had been crying for weeks, knowing we’d be separated, but she put on a brave face for me during the day.
“I’ll come back for you, little viper,” I’d said over and over, holding her close. “I’ll never abandon you.”
“I know, Max.” She’d sniffled into my shoulder. “Promise you won’t get a boyfriend and forget about me.”
I’d laughed and cried with her, tapping her nose. “Never. Not even after you get yourself a nice boyfriend someday.”
She’d giggled.
I drew a sharp breath, forcing my mind back to the present. “We leave at dawn tomorrow. During first shift. That puts us a day ahead before the overseers and guards even realize we’re missing.”
“They’re pushing us over fourteen hours now.” Kaid’s face tightened with resentment. “They won’t notice until second shift, when we don’t come back up.”
My friends nodded, determination settling on their bony faces.
“Let’s go through the plan one last time.” I tapped Utah twice, where our mining district sat. “Common knowledge says going west and deep into the White Witch’s territory is the easiest path.”
The Rupture had changed everything—global geography, power structures. Old powers fell. New ones rose from the ashes.
North America had split into four kingdoms, though the major cities kept their old names.
Four heirs ruled the Zodiac Covenant in the Midwest, their base in Denver, Colorado.
The White Witch had formed the Pallid Court in San Francisco.
The South—Texas, part of New Mexico—belonged to the Collector.
His followers called him the Saint. He named his kingdom the Haven.
After the White Witch seized power, the former federal government retreated north. Frozen lands. Washington, parts of Montana, regions of Canada. They called themselves New Columbia.
“That was the mistake all the freedom seekers made,” I continued.
“They went west because there are no barbed-wire fences. They thought if they reached Nevada, they could pass through Oregon and go north to New Columbia. They thought the former federal government would be kinder to folks like them. Like us.”
“Would they?” Kaid asked. “They don’t approve of slavery, right? Didn’t their ancestor, President Lincoln, abolish it?”
“Max can’t know either.” Desta rolled her eyes. “He’s spent more time in the bowels of the tunnels than any of us.”
“We don’t know much about the surface except what Missy scraped together for us,” I admitted. “But I know this: if we go west, we won’t make it. All the forces will focus on hunting deserters going west. It’s the obvious route. The only way through is east.”
That was what my parents had told me: Go east, Max. Always east. And somehow, in my bones, it felt right. So when I’d dug the new tunnel for our escape, I’d chosen that direction, even though it was harder, even though it took longer.
“But are we sure it’s safer in the Zodiac Covenant?” Kaid asked. “I’ve heard the heirs are all monsters.”
If you got more than three people together, they’d never agree on anything. That was why I always decided and let them choose whether to follow.
I threw up my hands. “We’re not wasting time arguing about people we don’t know being assholes or not. We’re not marching up to their military fortress. We just need to blend into the satellite suburbs in their outer territory, then figure out our next move.”
“We can be farmers. Builders,” Rogue chimed in, ever supportive. “We’ve got the skills. We’re hard workers. We’ll prove ourselves.”
None of us wanted to be miners again.
Kaid nodded, looking more hopeful now, less afraid.
“I wasn’t challenging you, Max,” he said quickly. “I just…that’s what everyone’s thinking, right?”
I moved my finger to the eastern region on the map. “This is our destination: Ashford, Wyoming. Neither the White Witch nor the heirs have firm control up north. It’s one of the frontier towns. If we get separated, we head there. That’s where we find each other. Agreed?”
They all nodded.
“No one’s ever breached the mine from the east. The guards won’t expect us to try.
When we come out of the tunnel, we’ll be past the military outposts, past the warded barbed-wire fences.
But we still have to cross the Scorched Wastes—former east Utah and Arizona—and then the land of the mutant cannibals. There’s no avoiding it.”
All three of my friends held their breath.
“We have weapons.” I gestured to the crude knives and tools we’d stockpiled for months. “I’ll lead you. But if you still want to bail?—”
“It’s a slow death staying here anyway.” Desta’s voice carried resignation.
“At least out there, we have a chance.” Kaid echoed her.
“We can do this!” Rogue’s conviction burned bright.
I looked at each of my friends, iron in my eyes.
I wasn’t an ignorant miner, as one might think.
My parents were the most educated people in this camp, and they’d poured everything into me.
Taught me all they could. They’d said I was different from other children—I walked at two months, spoke at three, could read at one year.
They kept this hidden, terrified of what would happen if anyone knew.
I spent my toddler years inside our humble hut, tucked away.
My parents worked different shifts to care for me, to prepare me for a life they knew they’d never see.
“Remember the map,” I instructed. “Remember every name on it. Every landmark.”