Chapter 2She Stole My Face But Got My Hell

I closed the messaging app without waiting for an answer. Outside the trailer, the production manager was already screaming at a production assistant about blown overtime budgets. I grabbed the battered canvas tote bag belonging to Nora Powell and slipped out through the back security gate.

A gust of dry Santa Ana wind hit me, and I sneezed.

This body was healthy, but years of cheap takeout and erratic sleep had left her out of shape. My lungs burned after half a block of walking.

I found a cheap strip-mall diner around the corner and ordered a greasy bowl of beef chili. The broth was salty, floating with an inch of spiced oil. In my former life, a single spoonful of this would have sent my stomach into hours of violent convulsions.

Now, I swallowed it down in huge, ravenous bites. The heavy warmth settled into my gut without a whisper of pain.

After eating, I walked two blocks down to an all-night internet cafe. The memories in this girl’s brain were fragmented, scattered by the suddenness of the swap, and I needed to take inventory of the wreckage she had left behind.

I logged into her mobile banking app.

Checking balance: $215.50.

Credit card balance: $8,400.

Payday loan default notice: $2,100.

I stared at the numbers glowing on the monitor and laughed out loud.

She thought she had robbed me. She thought she had pulled off the heist of the century by stepping into the shoes of an A-list icon, completely blind to the ten-year, hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar collateralized ticking bomb tied around my neck. And in return, she had handed me an absolute clean slate—a microscopic, ten-thousand-dollar hole that required nothing more than a little competence to climb out of.

What an absolute amateur.

I opened an industry casting board, bypassed every commercial call and formulaic network procedural, and zeroed in on a single production listing.

Director: Declan Hayes.

Project: Shatterpoint.

Role: Female Lead (Open Call).

Declan was notoriously stubborn, arrogant, and brilliant. His sets were iron kingdoms: no cosmetic surgery faces, no influencer casting stunts, and zero studio executive interference.

Before the swap, I had begged my management team to let me read for him. But Garrett Shaw, the head of my agency and the architect of my career, had dismissed the script with a sneer. Declan’s indie budget couldn't afford my quote, and Declan demanded six months of rigorous, isolated method preparation. Garrett had passed on it without my consent, signing me up instead for another bloated, lucrative corporate franchise.

Now, Declan’s open audition was the only door I needed.

I jotted down the audition address on an index card and shut down the computer.

The next morning, I spent forty dollars at a thrift store near North Hollywood, buying a crisp white cotton button-down and a pair of tailored black trousers. I scrubbed my face until the skin was raw and pink, using neither foundation nor mascara.

Nora Powell’s bone structure wasn't classical, but it had depth. With the grease washed away and the puffiness reduced, her features carried an unvarnished, hungry edge that Hollywood starlets spent fortunes trying to manufacture.

I arrived at the casting office on Sunset at eight sharp. The corridor was already packed shoulder-to-shoulder with actresses rehearsing their sides, their nervous whispers filling the hallway.

Suddenly, a wave of commotion broke out near the elevator banks.

The crowd parted instinctively.

Garrett Shaw stepped into the hall. He was draped in a bespoke, silver-gray three-piece suit that screamed eight-figure agency commission, his wire-rimmed glasses catching the harsh fluorescent light.

Clinging to his arm was the woman wearing my face.

She had dressed for the audition in a sweeping, backless crimson silk gown with a plunging neckline. It was the kind of outfit meant for the red carpet at the Vanity Fair party, utterly absurd for a gritty, stripped-down dramatic screen test.

Garrett’s jaw tightened—a faint, almost imperceptible twitch of irritation that I had learned to read over a decade of manipulation. But he smoothed it over with a practiced smile.

I stood quietly in the corner, my hands resting in my pockets, watching the pair of them.

Her eyes swept the room and locked onto me instantly. A nasty, triumphant grin broke across my old features. She whispered something to Garrett, tugging his arm as she dragged him straight toward my corner.

"Garrett, darling, the industry’s standards really have hit rock bottom," she said loudly, fanning the air in front of her nose with a manicured hand as if warding off a foul odor. "Any stray off the street thinks they can wander in and audition for Declan Hayes."

Garrett adjusted his glasses, looking down at me with the vacant, clinical detachment he usually reserved for expired milk.

"Who represents you?" he asked. His tone was velvet-smooth, masking the total absence of human empathy beneath.

I met his gaze dead-on. "Nobody. Nora Powell. Non-union."

At the sound of the name, the woman burst into a brittle, performative laugh. "Oh, it's you. The little stunt double who spent two hours soaking in my ditch yesterday."

She turned her face up toward Garrett, pouting. "Garrett, she's a thief. Yesterday on set, she was caught stealing from the craft services table. Don't let her linger around here. She's ruining the energy of the room."

Garrett didn't bother asking for proof. To a man who traded human careers like derivatives, the innocence of a background extra was worth less than the dust on his oxfords.

He gave a slight, dismissive nod to the two private security guards trailing him. "Escort this woman out of the building. We don't want anything disturbing Miss Bradley's focus."

The guards stepped forward, their thick fingers clamping around my upper arms like vice grips. The pressure was intense, threatening to bruise the muscle.

I didn't thrash. I didn't pull away.

I simply took a deep, steady breath from my diaphragm, aimed my voice directly at the heavy oak doors of the audition room, and projected with every ounce of vocal training I possessed:

"Since when does a talent agency get to dictate the casting room for Declan Hayes?!"

The projection was thunderous. The crisp, resonant strike of my voice cut through the corridor like a whip cracking.

The entire hallway went dead silent. Actresses froze mid-sentence. People stared at me as if I had pulled a weapon.

The woman wearing my face turned crimson with rage, pointing a shaking finger at me. "Who the hell do you think you are to say Declan's name? Put your hands over her mouth! Drag her out!"

The guards moved to cover my face.

Click.

The heavy oak door swung wide.