A made up face she does not recognise

She had a full face of dark makeup on. Exaggerated. Almost like she was some goth villain. Heavy black liner winged out past her temples, smoky shadow that made her warm brown eyes look sunken and predatory, lipstick so dark it was nearly black, smeared at the corners like someone had been kissing her, or using her mouth for a long time. Her hair, which she never really cared a lot about beyond a quick ponytail or a low bun for work, seemed to have been done up well. Soft waves framed her face, a few strands artfully escaping to brush her cheeks, the rest piled and pinned in a way that made her resemble some old-school actress from a noir film. The kind who ruined men with a look.

The whole thing weirded Nadia out.

She decided to have an everything shower in the middle of the night and wonder what had happened to her in the morning. She stripped the stockings off, they peeled away with a faint sucking sound, leaving red lines on her thighs and stepped under the rainfall showerhead. She washed her hair twice, scrubbed her face until the makeup ran in gray rivers down her chest, soaped every inch of her body three times. She paid special attention to her breasts, to the new piercings that still felt foreign under her fingers, to the tender place between her legs that throbbed with a low, persistent ache. By the time she shut the water off she was clean, but she felt hollowed out.

Exhaustion hit her like a wave. She didn’t even bother with a towel. She collapsed back onto her bed replaced with clean sheets now, and sleep overtook her once again.

When Nadia woke in the morning, sunlight was already slicing through the slats of the blinds. She had slept in. The clock on her nightstand read 10:47. Jaden’s first class started at 11:00. The events from the previous night almost seemed like a bad dream until she sat up and saw the spiral stickers she had taken off lying on the floor in front of the mirror, curled and discarded like shed skin along with a wet patch where the cum had spilled out. She also spotted a purple robe with black feathers up top, lying near the door to her room. Something about the robe seemed familiar and yet completely foreign, the deep midnight color, the theatrical upward sweep of the feathers at the shoulders. She decided to leave it there. She didn’t want to touch it.

She put on a plain cotton robe from the back of the bathroom door, the one she actually owned, and went to greet Jaden, her son.

But as she entered his room, he was missing.

The bed was made. Not the sloppy teenage version he usually left it in, hospital corners, pillow centered. His backpack was gone. His phone charger was unplugged. Had he already left for his classes? Something within Nadia told her that it was very important for her to see her son. Wasn’t she working on something important for him? Her son needed her desperately, didn’t he?

Her head hurt a lot.

Nadia clutched at her temple as she knelt in his bedroom, one hand on the edge of his desk to keep from tipping over. The pain was sharp, localized, like someone had driven a thin needle behind her left eye. When it suddenly hit her, the memory arrived in pieces.

The penlight.

Nadia had been working on a strange penlight Zack Hargrove was using to brainwash women and blackmail her son. She remembered the USB cable, the waveforms on her laptop screen, the late-night analysis. How could she forget something so important? Wasn’t she supposed to help him with it? She’d promised him. She’d told him to eat, to shower, to sleep. She’d said she would take care of the rest.

But why hadn’t he checked in on her? And why was she wearing…

As soon as Nadia started thinking about her outfit, the heels, the stockings, the spiral stickers, the cape on the floor, her headache returned, worse this time. It spiked so hard her vision tunneled. She stopped thinking about it. The pain receded the instant her mind slid away from the costume, from the piercings, from the smell that had been on her skin.

Her own problems were nothing. She could figure them out later.

Nadia thought to herself as she focused on getting to Jaden and helping him however she could. That was the priority. Find her son. Make sure he was safe. Finish what she’d started with the device. With that goal in mind, Nadia went back to her room to get dressed.

She chose the most ordinary clothes she owned: dark jeans, a simple gray sweater that covered her from neck to hips, flats instead of anything with a heel. She pulled her hair into a low ponytail and skipped makeup entirely. The glasses she usually wore for work sat on the dresser; she put them on and immediately felt a little more like herself. In the mirror she still looked tired, dark circles, a faint puffiness around her mouth, but she looked like Dr. Nadia Hayes again. Psychologist. Mother. Woman who solved problems.

She grabbed her keys and her phone. No messages from Jaden. No missed calls. The last text she’d sent him was from three weeks ago, the one telling him to be safe. After that, nothing.

Nadia locked the front door behind her and headed for campus, the leftover ache in her temples pulsing in time with her steps. She would find him. She would fix this. Whatever “this” turned out to be.