I stared at her, shocked. How did she know about this? I never told anyone about it. Certainly by hacking into your medical file, you poor idiot, I said to myself. But what interest could she have in doing that? None at first sight. So, would it be possible that there's a rational explanation for who I was? Or was it just a cleverly designed trap to get me to do what she wanted, that is, follow her of my own free will?

My breathing accelerated and I tried to mask my nervousness. If she felt how much I wanted these answers, she could use them against me. So I decided to play the stunned girl part, which was not very complicated. Could that be the reason she's here? That it was my difference that interested her all along? I had to know for sure and if it was a trap, so be it. I would fall into it, and happily so, if it could allow me to have even the smallest bit of an explanation.

- 'Tell me what you know!'

My voice, made hoarse by stress and apprehension, still sounded very forceful, while I wondered if anything positive would finally come out of this crazy evening.

- 'It's not for me to tell you...'

- 'But of course, how practical!' I cut her dryly. 'Now...'

- 'Not now and certainly not here,' she interrupted me in turn with the exasperated voice of a person convinced to speak to a decerebrate moron.

And here we were again. She was going to try to convince me to follow her again. It was so predictable that I was barely disappointed. As I opened my mouth to ask her once and for all to get out of my house, she held out her hand forward to interrupt me.

- 'We thought you had at least a vague idea of what you were! At the very least, that it would become obvious when we met. But obviously, we were wrong! And it had to be me,' she ended grumbling for herself.

- 'Now, that's very enlightening. Thank you, really, thank you! Everything is so much clearer now,' I replied without hiding my sarcastic tone, which reflected my state of mind quite well.

- 'They better not count on me to do a catch-up class for losers! And then what else,' she growled again between her teeth, giving me increasingly hostile looks.

I looked at her with wide eyes, increasingly convinced that I was dealing with a mentally ill person.

- 'I'm talking about your empathic abilities, you stupid idiot!' she said, looking mean, as she rolled her eyes and raised her arms to heaven as if I were a desperate case.

Seeing that I was not reacting to her shattering revelation, she continued with an increasingly exasperated look.

- 'Your ability to capture the "emotions and feelings" of other living beings, especially animals,' she continued, articulating each word carefully, in order to convey all the contempt she held for me.

Oh, my God! Could it be that? I had restrained my thoughts so much, without really knowing what they were, and for so long, that they were nothing more than a kind of incessant background noise to which I no longer paid much attention. As far back as I can remember, the feeling of not being alone in my head had always been present.

Was I capturing the emotions of the people around me all this time? Could I control it or even better, get rid of it?

Then the end of her explanation finally reached my overheated brain and finally realized what the abilities she was bestowing on me were all about: communicating with animals. My initial enthusiasm fell like a soufflé. Seriously? I mean, come on! I was dealing with a crazy woman after all and maybe I was as crazy as she was for wanting to believe it. I felt a deep despair overwhelming me, proportional to the hope I had had of finally having real answers.

- 'But I don't have...'

As I began to deny, memories came back to me. The rare afternoons I spent in the countryside when I was younger. Alone, most of the time, as usual, my presence scaring away other children. Sitting at the water's edge watching the lizards warm up on the stones of the shore and trying, for fun, to encourage them to come to me through my mind. At the time I hadn't paid any attention to it, but my senses seemed both more present and more soothing too. Especially when they came to me before I lost control, or whatever. I had cast it aside as luck... but what if it was something else?

I was the one who was out of control now. Did I really want to put a name on these events and have proof that I wasn't crazy, that I was ready to believe any nonsense? Even something that crazy? Was I so desperate in my core that I would rather have "superpowers" than be really called deranged? Probably! What kind of child feeling different had not dreamt of it before? But I was no longer a child and, at my age, it was only pathetic. As I felt sorry for myself, the voice of my mystery visitor brought me back to reality in a brutal way.

- 'See, you know what I mean!' she exclaimed with a certain jubilation and a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

- 'No, but it's not.... This is ridiculous. They're just nonsensical memories of a kid. I've never... communicated with animals! And to my knowledge, no one can,' I said, with yet some hope.

- 'That's where you're wrong. Some people have this ability, they don't shout it from the rooftops, that's all,' she rebuked me in a condescending tone as I looked surprised. 'Also, I never talked about "communicating" with animals, but rather about sharing emotions and sensations.'

I shook my head, not knowing what to think at all. She didn't seem delirious and even seemed very confident. Could it be that there really are other people like me? So many questions and interrogations were jostling in my head. I ended up taking my head in my hands, whining a little to helplessness.

- 'Look, I won't give you any more explanations. I've already wasted enough time trying to convince you. I was ordered to bring you back by will or by force. But after all, if you want to die, it won't bother me,' she continued in a still cold voice, as she walked towards the door.

It was quick, but I still managed to perceive discouragement and apprehension on her face. The first time, I thought I was dreaming. Now I no longer had any doubts and this added to my questions. Not to mention the death threat she had just mentioned. Another new development. This crazy night was never going to end! I still hesitated between letting her go and accepting her request, when she stopped on her own at the border of our small entrance corridor and told me without looking back:

- 'Isn't that what you've always wanted, answers?'

Her voice again cold and impersonal froze me, but it was the indifference in her speech that made me see red. Who did she think she was? With this simple sentence, she had just admitted that she knew my past, my whole life and that my need for understanding seemed quite negligible to her. She even had the audacity to use it as a bargaining chip, as if it didn't mean anything, even though I had been waiting for these words all my life.

I was so angry that I felt like I was suffocating. I was about to tell her to go to hell, when I realized that it might make me lose one of the only chances I had of ever knowing the truth about who I really was. I took a deep breath, put my pride aside and answered in a tone that was anything but friendly.

- 'All right, you won! I'm willing to meet this person. But there is absolutely no way I'm going to follow you. I will go there on my own. Take it or leave it.'

She turned around with a satisfied smile, which did not completely mask her relief.

- 'Good. Well, I guess the time is no longer a matter. I'll pick you up at nine o'clock.'

With these few words, she turned tail again and left as quickly and silently as she had arrived. I remained alone and completely stunned, standing in the middle of the living room. I didn't even hear the door open and close. Speaking of doors... I rushed towards this one, went around the bookshelf which blocked my view and arrived in front of the closed door. Perfectly locked, the key in the keyhole and the additional lock in place. How did she get in and out of our house? Another unanswered question. That crazy night policy, I guess!

Suddenly, a terrible thought crossed my mind: what if Cassie hadn't just gone to save Duane's ass? What if she had opened the door to that madwoman and taken her to make sure I cooperated in case plan A didn't work? Quite conceivable coming from this sociopath. On the verge of panic, I tried again to reach her, without success, then calm down to think rationally. This did not explain the Oudini departure, nor the fact that there was no sign of a struggle in the apartment. No, it was stupid. I'll find Cassie warm in her bed tomorrow morning and we'll laugh at my stupid fright.

Tired and unable to do anything more for now, I decided to go to bed, convinced that exhausting myself would not be of any use. Hopefully, I would wake up and realize that it was, in fact, only a particularly strange dream. On the way to my room, I almost hit myself in the small round window of the corridor that remained open. I hurried to close it with a grumble and collapsed on my bed without having had time to slip under the sheets.