Despite my ever-increasing urge to punch her little smirk off her face, I had to acknowledge her logic. What reason would she have had to lie to me now that I had agreed to go with her? If she held Cassie to control me, she would have made it known before. My concern dissipated slightly. She must be stuck in her brother's endless and never-ending problems again and had simply forgotten to tell me. So I decided to stop worrying about it and focus on the current problem.

- 'All right, let's go!' I said to her in a voice that I hoped would be as warm as hers, while checking the door was locked. 'By the way, what's your name?' I asked her, surprised that she had still not spit it in my face.

- 'Is it really that important? We are wasting precious time chatting unnecessarily.'

- 'Very well. If you'd rather I call you Blondie, that's fine with me!'

- 'My name is Hannah,' she finally grumbled without turning back, before heading like a fury towards the stairs, obviously goaded by my reply.

- 'Nice to meet Hannah,' I replied sarcastically, trying not to laugh. 'I'm Christina.'

- 'I know.'

Obviously! Since she knew my address, she knew my name.

The journey was silent. We left Detroit to the west and arrived quite quickly in the countryside. We passed through several little burgs which all looked alike and seemed to be characterized by abandonment and boredom. It was quite depressing. This added to that dull and grey autumn morning, and my mood seemed to sink into a bottomless pit.

After about 45 minutes of silent driving, Hannah made me turn right onto a small road that was more a side road than a real road. I prayed silently to the god of mechanics that my old car would remain intact despite the potholes and pebbles of various and varied sizes that were scattered along the way. We finally arrived, quite shaken, in sight of an imposing wooden house that could have looked luxurious if it had been better tended.

Seeming to have been built in the middle of nowhere, it stood alone at the edge of a forest. The rest of the surrounding scenery was just miles and miles of fields as far as the eye could see. Lost was the appropriate word to describe this spot. Yet there was something warm and welcoming about this place that I couldn't explain.

Hannah got out of the car and walked towards the house, without worrying about whether or not I was following her. I followed in her footsteps and waited for her to knock on the door. I don't know what I expected, but definitely not a little blonde girl gushing out from between the legs of a man of a certain age to throw herself into Hannah's arms laughing. Then, under my bewildered eyes, she took the child in her arms and lifted her up as if she weighed nothing.

- 'What are you doing here, little monster? You were supposed to stay safe with the others.'

Her tone was warm and kind. She ruffled her hair, a soft smile on her face.

- 'I missed you and I was worried about you,' the little girl replied, snuggling up to her with a gentle sigh.

- 'There, I brought her here as you asked,' she said to the man standing in front of her.

Her voice and face had returned to their usual coldness and impassivity and she stood very straight in a frozen posture, as if she were at attention, despite the little cutie clinging to her.

- 'Now, I doubt she can be of any help to us or even if she will want to. Not to mention that I still believe that you put us all in danger.'

She turned slightly towards me and stared at me with a look oozing disapproval, before turning her attention back to her interlocutor.

- 'I know your opinion and you know mine. Now that you have done your duty, go and let me do mine,' he commanded her in a cold and unabashed tone.

- 'Fine.'

Then without a word, she disappeared with the child inside the house. I remained frozen for a moment, surprised to see her surrender so quickly. In her defense, the grey-haired, cold-faced man didn't look very pleasant. I swallowed and wondered for the umpteenth time why I was here and what fate had in store for me.

The man waited until Hannah fully disappeared inside the house before turning to me, a totally different expression on his face. It's like he just took off a mask or put on one. His face softened and broke into a warm smile as he walked down the steps of the porch with a soft and energetic gait, to shake my hand.

As I took it, a sharp pain passed through me, like an electric shock, and ended its journey in my brain where it seemed to burst like a firework that caused me to stagger. I did not take my hand away and continued to shake his as if nothing had happened, hoping that this little incident, which I could not explain, had gone unnoticed. His handshake was firm and gentle at the same time, and nothing in his eyes showed that he had noticed anything unusual.

- 'I thank you for coming and please do not worry,' he said seeing my suspicious look. 'I imagine this must all seem very strange to you, but come on in, please. Let's not stay in the cold and settle down more comfortably to talk.'

I stayed there for a moment without moving. Was it really a good idea to follow him inside this gloomy house? Oh, what the hell, now that I was here, I might as well go all the way! I didn't come all the way here to stay on the doorstep. He let me through the door like a real gentleman and, to encourage me to walk a little further into the vast vestibule, gently pushed me with a hand that brushed against the hollow of my back.

Just as I was about to take offense at this gesture, which was a little too intimate for my taste, another migraine caught me off guard. I tried to hold back my growl of instinctive pain and closed my eyes for a few seconds. My host turned briefly to observe me, then again, without comment, took me to a living room of a very different style to the left of the entrance.

It was a huge and very high-ceilinged room. A large rustic-style fireplace, which did not really match the style of the house, occupied the right wall while the other two walls had many windows that let in the light. Three raw wooden sofas arranged in a U-shape surrounded an oak coffee table and faced the fireplace, all set on a huge white wool carpet. The rest of the room was furnished with several bookcases and some comfortable looking armchairs. This place radiated an impression of calm and serenity with its predominantly off-white tones, embellished here and there with a few touches of lavender and pale pink. Cassie would have liked it a lot.

Thinking of her brought me back to earth and I stopped raving about the decoration to focus on the current situation. The man, whose name I still didn't know, motioned to me to take a seat before doing the same in the one opposite mine. Once I sat down, I realized that my headache had subsided, but not disappeared as it had the previous two times. A kind of muffled buzzing, much more powerful than what I usually felt, echoed under my skull, preventing me from thinking properly. At the cost of a great effort of concentration, I tried to ignore it and focus my failing attention on my interlocutor.

- 'First let me introduce myself. My name is Charles Moore and I am...,' he began before interrupting, seemingly in search of the right words, as if afraid that I would not understand what was to follow. 'How could I say it so you'd understand? I'm kind of the leader of this community.'