November 9, 1929
Elsworth, PA

A young girl sat on a desecrated bench on the edge of an old street lined with broken, dirty houses, nearly freezing in the thin rags that passed as her clothes and were far too large on her too-thin body. Her long dark blonde hair was tangled and uneven, caked with dust and mud and whatever else might've been in the gutters. She hadn't any money anywhere on her person and most likely hadn't eaten in days. Such was the Great Depression.

Of course, it wasn't quite called that, just then. The girl—Max, as she was known—called it that herself, as some kind of grim joke. Not much of a joke, she thought bitterly to herself. After all, here she was—starving, orphaned, and broke. After her mom and little sister died of pneumonia, she was evicted from her house. Even though she was only fourteen, the children's houses were overflowing with hungry tots, leaving the teenaged orphans to live in the streets. And it wasn't like her father was ever in the picture.

The street she sat on was near empty, since there were so few people in town anymore. A few hundred people who couldn't afford to move away and a few dozen people who hadn't invested in the stocks and had more than enough to live on. Obviously, Max was a part of the former.

She smiled bitterly at one of the many pigeons that dwelled on the street as it pecked at a non-existent bread crumb on the road. "No such luck, buddy," she said rhetorically. "You've got about as much food as I do."

"And how much is that, exactly?" asked a tenor voice.

Max whipped her head around to see a young man standing near her bench. He was a handsome man, with a slightly curved nose and high cheekbones. He would be slightly taller than her if she stood and was dressed in clean, unripped clothes—a nice brown suit and slacks, a cream colored tie, and a pageboy cap. What was visible of his hair was strawberry blond, nearing ginger, and his big blue eyes were glassy. In his right hand, he held a cane, and though he was looking right at her, Max got the chilling feeling that he couldn't actually see her.

He was blind.

"How much?" he questioned again, cocking his head slightly to the side.

Max swallowed, suddenly feeling coy. "None at all, to be sure," she finally answered after a terse moment.

His blue eyes widened slightly. Max wondered if it was simply a reflexive action, as it wouldn't very much change things. "How old are you?"

"Just turned fourteen two months ago."

"What are you doing out at this hour? It's nearly nightfall!"

With a start, she realized that the boy was correct. Twilight was beginning to fall, bringing an even more severe chill with it. "I don't got nowhere to go," she answered, rather than questioning him on how in the heavens he could've figured out the time of day without his sight like she wanted to.

"What about your parents?" he asked in a concerned, angelic voice. Max felt her cheeks heat up involuntarily.

"Mom's dead, Dad's never been around. I got evicted a week after the crash."

The boy looked mildly startled, but more sorrowful than anything. "Would you be completely adverse to coming to my home, even for a night? You'd have a warm bed and a full stomach." His voice seemed to implore her, begging, almost.

Max immediately felt her temper and pride rise. How dare anyone pity her? "For what in exchange? Need somebody to warm your bed? Sorry to disappoint you, but there's a whorehouse just down the road if you can bear to spare a penny you obviously possess."

His pale cheeks flushed and he began to stutter (which, to her irritation, Max found slightly endearing). "N-Nothing like that at all, I swear! I just hate knowing that I have much more than I need and there are people on the street who have less than nothing."

A bitter breeze decided to come through the street just then, chilling Max to her bones. She glared at the sky bitterly before she shakily stood on legs that could hardly support her. "Fine," she said as she walked towards him, wincing slightly at the feel of the cold cobblestone on her bare feet. "Just for a night. What's your name?"

"My name is James Griffiths, but my friends call me Iggy."

"I'm Max. Just…Max."

She took his offered arm and though she would later insist that it was merely for the support it would lend her, she quite liked his warmth.

One night turned to two, and then a week, and then a year, and before Max realized it, three years had passed and she was turning seventeen.

And that was when things got complicated.