"Cinder!" a voice that was way too enthusiastic for that early in the morning broke through the luxurious haze of dreamland Cinder had been floating in. "Wake up!"

A heavy weight fell on top of Cinder, who was curled up on her side like a baby on top of the mattress. "Cinder!"

She groaned, regretting not locking her door. She reached for her blanket to pull over her head - and then realized there was no blanket.

Two fingers carefully pried her eyelids open. "Rise and shine, my sunshine!" a voice sweetly singsonged. Cinder reached up to knock Peony's hand away. "Go away."

Cinder could picture Peony's shrug. "Too bad for you! It's our first day of school and we are not going to be late."

"Seriously?" Cinder sighed. She had forgotten that today they would be starting at Commonwealth High. Judging from what she had heard from Thorne and Scarlet, and the whole debacle with the Wolf Pack, she was not looking forward to it.

"I am sooooo excited!" her stepsister exclaimed. "I can't wait to meet new friends!" Cinder had no doubt that Peony would easily make friends. Her sunny personality seemed to attract other kids like a magnet. Cinder, on the other hand, repelled people. Not that there was anything wrong with that. At her old school, she had had Iko, and that was enough. But now... she was all alone.

"All right, fine, I'll get up," Cinder conceded. Peony scrambled off her bed. "What time is it?"

Her sister was out the door before she finished asking the question, probably running off to put on her best clothes and do her hair and makeup. Cinder grabbed her phone to check the time. 6:30. She hadn't been up that early in years!

"PEONY!"

A few hours later, Cinder, Pearl, and Peony were climbing the stairs down from their apartment. Adri kissed Pearl and Peony on the cheeks and sniffled about t how she would be so lonely without them that day. Cinder was given nothing more than a cursory glance and a slight wrinkle of Adri's nose. She could tell that Adri thought she looked like a mess, but she really didn't care. Cinder was wearing her usual outfit of cargo pants and a T-shirt. She hadn't made much of an effort with her hair, barely running a comb through it.

Pearl and Peony, on the other hand, were all dolled up to look their best for their first day at Commonwealth High. Cinder wanted to scream in Adri's face about the reason why they were running out of money was that Adri ordered all of their clothes to be custom made, if not that, then from the fanciest designer clothing brands. That morning, Adri had taken the time to give both girls makeovers as well, curling their hair and caking their faces. If Adri thought that wearing a pound of makeup somehow made you look more beautiful, she was wrong.

They exited the Phoenix Tower Apartments into the chilly morning air. Adri decided that they would walk to school even though it was a mile away because their family didn't own a car (it had been sold to help pay for the move) and it was too expensive to take a bus or a taxi. The second they were around the corner and out of sight of the apartment building, though, Pearl reached into her messenger bag for her cell phone (apparently in high school, it wasn't fashionable to wear a backpack).

"What are you doing, Pearl?" Peony asked.

"Calling a taxi," Pearl sniffed, rolling her eyes as if that should have been obvious. "There's no way I'm walking that far to school, for God's sake! I mean, I'm wearing high heels."

Cinder glared at her. "We don't have enough money for a taxi," she reminded her. If Pearl wanted to waste their family's money, then it would be her fault when they went bankrupt. But what really irked Cinder was the fact that she had earned all the money for them! It should be spent on a new foot for Cinder, not an overpriced taxi ride for Pearl because she was wearing the wrong shoes.

"Sure we do," Pearl rolled her eyes again. "Our father left behind plenty of money for us."

Cinder gaped openmouthed at her. Did Adri really not tell her daughters about how little money they had? Pearl clearly didn't realize that the only reason they still had a roof over their heads was that Cinder had found work in the mechanic shop. She shrugged. "Suit yourself. I'm walking to school."

Peony looked back and forth between them, torn between her sister and her adoptive sister. She dashed over to Cinder. "I need the exercise," she told Cinder, who smiled and ruffled her shiny black hair.

After a long walk that caused Cinder to mentally curse Adri for not letting her buy a bigger foot and her human foot blistered and aching, they arrived at Commonwealth High. It was exactly how she had pictured: a rowdy yard full of boys tackling each other and girls gossiping, a collection of school buildings that looked like they had been built last century, and harried-looking teachers trying to get into the school. Peony squealed and clapped her hands together. "This is going to be amazing!"

Cinder wished that she could share her optimism. This new school looked to her like another place where she would get tormented because of her prosthetics. Peony seemed to read her mind. "Don't worry, Cinder. No one's going to be mean to you." She looked down at Cinder's hands. "You're wearing your gloves?"

Cringing, Cinder tugged the hem of her left glove a little farther over her wrist. "Yeah. No one needs to know about my situation." Peony was frowning, but she dropped the subject. "We're supposed to go to the main office, right?"

"Yeah," Cinder agreed. "We need to get our schedules."

Inside the office, she was surprised to see Thorne. "Hey!" he called when he saw her. "Cinder!" He was reclining in one of the chairs just outside the door to the principal's office.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. Peony unhelpfully whispered into her ear, "He's really cute."

Thorne shrugged. "Oh, the usual. Got one too many bad grades. Cut some classes."

"Oh." She didn't know what else to say. She was shocked by how casual he was acting about all of this. Coming to the principal's office must be a regular occurrence for him. So Cinder turned away and walked up to the receptionist at the front desk. "Hi. I'm Cinder Linh, and this is my sister Peony. We were supposed to come to get our schedules?"

The woman smiled. "Oh, you must be the new students! I'm Ms. Lee. Let me just pull up your files really quick..." She saw something on the computer screen that made her frown. "Wait, we only have students registered under the names Selene and Peony Linh. Is that a mistake?"

"Oh, no, Cinder is just a nickname. Selene is my real name."

"Oh, that clears things up." Ms. Lee went into a back room to print their schedules. Cinder remembered the day back when she was twelve and Pearl was thirteen, and her stepsister had thought it would be funny to call her Cinderella because she was always doing the chores. Eventually, Cinderella had been shortened to Cinder, and that name had just stuck. At first, Cinder had been annoyed by this, but now she couldn't imagine being called anything other than Cinder. It suited her for some reason.

"Here you go, ladies." Ms. Lee handed Cinder and Peony their schedules.

Cinder immediately saw the mistake on hers. "I think you made a mistake, Ms. Lee. It looks like I'm enrolled in all the senior classes. I'm only a sophomore."

Ms. Lee shook her head. "No, Cinder. The placement test you took a few days ago indicates that you are ready for senior-level classes, and even some honors classes."

Cinder looked back at her schedule. Sure enough, she was enrolled in the twelfth-grade honors classes for science and math, her two strongest subjects. This wasn't good. Now not only would she be the robot girl, but she would also be the robot girl who skipped two grades. She tried to decline the opportunity politely. "I'm humbled that you think I'm so smart, but I would really prefer to be with kids my own age. I - I think it would be better for my social development."

The receptionist shook her head. "Sorry, Cinder, but placement can't be changed. If this is a matter of low self-esteem, I have to say I think you'll do great in the older kids' classes."

She started to protest again, but then gave up, knowing that Ms. Lee was as unbending as steel. The sisters walked out of the office. Not for the first time, Cinder wished she could just be normal.

"I'm so proud of you," Peony told her, trying to cheer her up. "You know, I don't think the other kids will think you're a freak. I think they'll be intimidated by how smart you are!"

"Thanks, Peony," Cinder mumbled. "I'll see you later."

"Make some friends!" Peony called over her shoulder as the girls parted to go to their separate classrooms.

"Yeah, right," Cinder muttered to herself. She checked over her schedule once again. The typical subjects were listed: English, math, science, history, as well as the specialized classes she had enrolled in: Mandarin Chinese, art, and the class she was most excited for - mechanics and engineering. Cinder was extremely excited to receive some formal education in mechanics since she had basically taught herself ever since Garan died.

She was making her way to her first class, English, when a tightly knit pack of high schoolers walked by. Without anyone telling her, Cinder could immediately tell that this was the popular crowd: the kids everyone admired and wanted to be. She could tell in the way they walked, striding along without hesitation. She could tell by the way kids scrambled to get out of their way as they glided through the halls, like a pack of sharks scaring away all the little fish. She could tell by their clothes, fancy designer clothes that clearly conformed to the latest fashion trends. But she could tell most of all by the way the looked at her as she ducked into a side hallway to get out of their way. They took in her dirty clothes and baggy cargo pants with raised eyebrows and snickers, looking over her as if she was nothing more than a slug. Right away, Cinder pinpointed their leader: a tall girl with long auburn curls and perfect makeup, her arm slung around the shoulders of a boy. She had seen girls like this before; superficial popular girls who only cared about their looks. But she couldn't deny that this girl was beautiful. It was nearly impossible to look away from her snow-white skin and sharp blue eyes, even as she sneered in disgust at Cinder. Her face looked familiar for some reason...

And then it hit Cinder: this was Levana Blackburn, known all over the country for her modeling. She had been featured in numerous magazine ads, that perfect body of hers plastered on billboards and television screens. She had had no idea that Levana even went to high school, much less in Commonwealth City.

And then Cinder noticed the boy Levana had her arm around, and her heart literally skipped a beat.

Author's Note: I know that Levana is like ten or fifteen years old than Cinder and the gang, but in this story, she's around the same age as Kai. Also, I've noticed that a lot of fanfics and fanart portray Levana with brown or blond hair, but in the first book Marissa Meyer describes Levana's glamour as having auburn hair, so I decided to go with that.