She took in the faded brown smudges on her mom’s lids where hours ago there’d been carefully applied bronze eye shadow.

She should let her rest.

“Yeah. The whole thing is ridiculous, Mom,” Sophie whispered, kissing her forehead. “Don’t worry.”

As Sophie got up to leave, her mom said, “Go get ’em, honey,” and she put a pillow over her head as she went back to sleep.

Sophie headed to the bathroom to begin her morning routine. Today she had to look better than ever. She had to make the whole school look at her and Eve Nobody Hoffman and think, “This list is meaningless.” She had to look like number one, and even more importantly, act like it. No weakness.

She turned on her morning playlist and lip-synched at her reflection until she saw her face become stunning and felt her spine turn to steel.

When she finished, dressed up in her best outfit—a scarlet shirt she’d found for only three bucks at Goodwill and some cute new pants she’d saved up for with her babysitting money—she went to wake up Bella.

“Come on, Bel! Time to get up! And put on that skirt I made you! It’s finished!”

Sophie cooked them scrambled eggs, and they headed off to school.

She pictured Ford as it would be at that moment, at seven o’clock A.M., unlit, with no students in it. Empty. It made her think of the old battlefields they read about in history class: a long grassy valley, all quiet, birds singing just like normal. And then a loud roar would come as two sides came toward one another ready to fight.

Sophie and her sister were the first kids on the bus. Sophie was the only kid at Ford who lived in Silver Ledge Apartments. The rest of the Silver Ledge kids were in elementary or high school.

“Don’t let anyone know where you live,” their mom always told them. “People in schools like yours will judge you for it. Trust me.”

And only a couple of kids did know, the ones who boarded at the stop after them. Luckily, they’d kept quiet so far.

Silver Ledge sat at the border of town, teetering between school districts. The rent was high, way higher than if they moved a few streets away to the apartments in Oakwood, but Sophie knew her mom stayed there because she wanted Sophie and Bella to go to the better public schools, even if it meant extra night shifts. Her dad sent money sometimes, and that helped, too, when it came.

As the bus rode farther into town, the houses grew bigger and bigger, until eventually they passed by Brody Dixon’s place, which was practically a castle. He not only had a bedroom for each sibling, and an office for his dad’s fancy job, and a room with a huge TV with every video game you could think of, he also had a room that—no joke—only the dog slept in. A dog room.