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CHAPTER 1: THE WRONG FACE

My eyes snapped open.

For a second, I knew nothing. Not my name. Not the weird, tinny beeping sound beside me. Not the blinding white ceiling.

“Where… am I?”

I turned my head. More beeping. A fancy monitor with glowing lines. A room that looked less like a hospital and more like a fancy hotel. Sunlight streamed through actual curtains.

Okay. Hospital. But the fancy kind.

My heart did a little panic dance. I pushed myself up, wincing. Everything ached. That’s when I saw her.

Curled up in a big plush chair was a little girl, maybe six. Deep asleep. Her brown hair was a mess, and she was strangling a worn-out teddy bear like her life depended on it. Something about the curve of her cheek was… familiar. But I didn’t know her.

Where are her parents? I thought, a protective pinch in my chest. You don’t leave a kid alone like that.

And then… it crashed in.

Not a memory. A tsunami.

My daughters. Lily, with her gap-toothed grin, asking a million questions. Chloe, always with a crayon in her hand, drawing on things she shouldn’t. My husband, Ben, with his laugh lines and the way he always smelled like coffee and home.

Home. The minivan. The sound of screeching tires - impossibly loud. A flash of blinding red. A Ferrari, like something from a movie, roaring past. The impact. The world spinning, then going dark.

I’d thought, This is it. I’m gone.

I gasped, my hand flying to my pounding head. It felt like it was splitting open.

But I wasn’t gone.

There was more. After the darkness… there was a voice. Clear as crystal, but everywhere and nowhere at once. It didn’t speak words I heard with my ears; I just knew them.

“Go back. Protect them.”

And then I woke up here. In a Hospital.

Protect them. The kids. Ben. Where were they? Why wasn’t Ben here, holding my hand, looking rumpled and worried?

I had to move. Figure this out. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My body felt weird. Lighter. Different. Probably the painkillers.

I shuffled to a door I hoped was the bathroom. It was. And it was ridiculous. Marble everywhere. Fancy soaps. A towel so fluffy it looked like a cloud.

“Who pays for this?” I muttered. My voice sounded rough. We had good insurance, but not “private marble bathroom” good. This was VIP stuff. A cold trickle of unease started in my stomach.

I needed to splash some water, shock my brain into making sense. I leaned over the giant sink, turned on the gold tap, and cupped the cool water in my hands.

I brought it to my face. It felt good. I looked up into the mirror.

And I screamed.

A short, sharp yelp of pure terror.

The face in the mirror screamed back.

But it wasn’t my face.

The woman staring at me, wide-eyed and dripping, was a stranger. She was… stunning. Heart-stoppingly beautiful, with high cheekbones, flawless skin, and huge, dark eyes. It was the kind of face you see on magazine covers. My face - my old face - was warm and friendly. This was movie-star perfection.

I watched, frozen, as the stranger’s perfect lips formed an ‘O’ of horror. I moved my hand. She moved hers. I touched my cheek. She touched hers.

This was not my hand. These were not my slightly calloused, mom-hands that were always digging for Lego or making sandwiches. These were slender, manicured, delicate hands.

“Mom? Mom, are you okay?”

The little girl’s voice, scared and sleepy, came from right outside the door. The girl from the chair. She was calling me ‘Mom.’

My heart hammered against ribs that didn’t feel like mine. This had to be a dream. A crazy, medication-fueled nightmare.

Okay. Time to wake up.

Every normal person knows how to deal with a bad dream. You pinch yourself. Or, if you’re serious about it…

I drew back my new, slender, unfamiliar hand and slapped myself across the face as hard as I could.

SMACK.

The sound was shockingly loud in the marble room.

Pain - real, hot, searing pain - exploded across my cheek. I stumbled back, clutching my face. Tears sprung to my new, beautiful eyes. In the mirror, the stunning stranger had a bright red handprint blooming on her flawless skin. She looked utterly shocked.

I wasn’t dreaming.

The pain was spectacular. The proof was right there in the mirror.

The joke wasn't on the dream. The joke was very, very much on me.

I was in someone else’s body. A little girl I didn’t know was calling me Mom. And a voice in the darkness had told me to protect people I couldn't even find.

I slid down the cold marble wall until I was sitting on the floor, staring at my strange, elegant feet.

“Just a moment, sweetie!” I heard the stranger’s voice - my voice now - call out, smooth and melodic, even though I felt like I was going to be sick. “Mommy’s… just fine.”

It was the biggest lie I had ever told.