The Selected | ✓

Chapter 1

A/N: This is a story for The Selection by Kiera Cass. It might have some spoilers, it might not. I don't know. I haven't read The Elite yet, either.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Selection. I don't own any settings, castes, or anything except my ideas. And I definitely own Cassiana.

The Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/heartbrokenhemmo/playlist/3jmpRbOV3Pq2vP4a3SStIC

I wake up laying on glass and asphalt.

The first thing my eyes land on is my black hair, fanned out next to my head, and my hand, which has blood on it that isn't mine.

I sit up and groggily look around, my head spinning and my vision going in and out of black. My pants are ripped, but they, like my jacket, protected me from whatever happened. I blink in the early morning sunlight, shaking some shards of glass from my hair.

"Cassiana!" I get up slowly. "Cassiana! Come here!" I walk as fast as I can to where my mother's voice comes from, despite my head spinning.

"Yes, Mother?"

She smiles, holding a small bag in her hands. "Just wanted to make sure that you're awake and okay. I couldn't find you. Look what I have." She opens the bag, revealing six apples.

My mouth drops open. "How did you get these?" As Eights, we can rarely get food that isn't rotten, but my mother tries.

Her smile falters for a second. Then it's back. "I did something for a Four, and he gave me these apples as payment."

I laugh and hug my mother. I never ask what jobs she does, and she never asks what I do. I usually help Sixes when I can, occasionally posing as one to help a Two or a Three. They just automatically assume that I'm a 'very pretty Six', as they say. Some have confused me for a Three or a Two in disguise. I even posed as a Five once, performing at a Two's party. My mother and I were able to eat for a week from that job.

She hands me an apple. "Eat." She says. I don't argue, biting into the thick red skin.

I don't like apples. For some reason I only like them sliced, or the juice. But I eat them anyway when we get them, because when you're starving most of the time you tend to not be picky about food.

We sit on a metal bench near a park and eat. "Are you going to sign up for the Selection?" My mother asks hopefully. "Mike gave me this earlier."

She hands me a thick, cream-colored envelope. Mike is one of the mailmen around here. He has a huge crush on my mother, though she's completely oblivious. I look up from the letter to my mother. She tries to cover it up, but I can see the hopeful gleam in her eyes. We both know that if I get picked, I'll get money each week. "Of course. But I won't be going for the princes."

She smiles. "Of course, darling." My mother and I look alike, I guess—black hair, pale skin. I'm tall, like my father. She has dark eyes, and mine are a bright green. Like, toxic bright. She kisses the top of my head.

I open the letter and read through it, but I don't have a pen. "The first day to drop them off is tomorrow," she says, "if you want to just get it in."

I shrug, looking at the papers in my hands. "You know that they take your picture, right? It's not completely random. And we don't have an address."

She smoothes back my hair. "Are you saying you have nothing to wear?" I nod, because it's true—we have nothing more than the clothes on our backs. "We'll find something. I can ask someone if they have any old dresses they no longer need. In fact, I know a Two that has no daughter to pass her clothes down to. Why don't we ask her? And I'm sure she'd be willing to let us use her address on the papers."

I smile. "That would be great."