They are watching you.

I felt my pulse pounding against my ears, carrying a rhythm that was very difficult to reach. I was choking trying to get the air I was missing and my mouth was dry, completely dry. I felt the terror flowing through my veins, awakening every cell in my body, charging them for battle with adrenaline and sugar. A physically non-existent battle against my demons.

I closed my eyes and switched on my mobile phone screen. It was three o'clock in the morning. 03:00. Not a minute more, not a minute less. Time seemed to have stopped, but I dismissed the idea when a 1 appeared in the minutes.

I unlocked the screen and looked up my best friend's phone number in contacts. I couldn't tell anyone else; Hypatia and Lydia had made it very clear that the killers weren't with them, Styles would look at me with sorrow and I didn't want to have that look on my face for the rest of the day, Kevin wasn't supposed to know no matter how hard it was for me not to tell him. Brian would be the only one in the whole group who would understand me, he wouldn't think anything other than what I would have told him and he would help me get things out in the open.

Had I really killed them? I asked myself over and over again, unable to get those images out of my head.

I watched their bodies disintegrate under a strange force every time I closed my eyes, their terrified gazes on my unconscious body.

I got out of bed and went straight to the bathroom. I turned on the light and saw something that terrified me in the reflection. It was only for a few seconds, but it was enough for the image to be etched forever in my head. It was me, with a completely dark background, I had no eyes, I didn't seem to have life. My head was tilted slightly to the right and my lips were parted and cracked. There were ropes holding me down. The costume I was wearing was from time immemorial, straight out of a dark fairy tale with a sad ending.

I fell to the ground in shock. I knew it wasn't real and that it was a figment of my imagination, probably from the nightmare. That didn't stop me from picking up the knife and approaching the door with it, wary of what might come out of it.

I went back inside and looked in the mirror. No one was there. I put the knife down on the sink and rested both hands on it. The images of the nightmare continued to haunt me. Dust everywhere, the lawyer's evil, demented grin, the woman's putrid, overbearing laughter.

I knew the fate of the lawyers, I just didn't know the fate of the two girls. I didn't want to find out like that. It was too much for me.

I rinsed my face with water, picked up the knife again and called Brian in case he was awake.

"Yes?" replied a lively, arrogant voice. He was wide awake, I concluded.

"You don't happen to have any sleeping pills handy? "

"I didn't take you for that kind of person, Stella," the fake disappointment with which she said it made me smile. "What do you need?"

"I remember everything" I closed my eyes, the images were still there "everything that happened to the lawyers. Everything that happened to the lawyers. Did they show you the video?"

"No. It was destroyed in the house explosion. All they know is that you killed them. They think you caused the explosion to escape."

"I didn't do that. I did something worse," I covered my mouth, overwhelmed.

"What?"

"Is this call secure?"

I listened to him type several buttons. It took him a while, just long enough for our conversation to be just that: ours.

"I killed them," I whispered, almost unable to speak from the lump that had formed in my throat. It hurt so much I couldn't breathe. I closed my eyes to hold back the tears, what a mistake, the images were still there waiting for me. "I killed them, Brian."

"Calm down," he said with a patience I didn't think he was capable of. "Breathe with me. In," I gasped for air. "Out," I let the air out as best I could, as it stumbled out of my lungs, between little hiccups and sobs. "Again, with me. Huh?" I made an affirmative sound. "In you go. As you close your eyes and watch the sky expand under your gaze, the stars twinkle and you discover a small nebula..." I imagined everything he said, each and every one of his words. "A red, black and blue nebula. It moves slowly as the air moves out of your lungs," I exhaled. "There are no distracting noises, no people around you. It's just you, floating, in the middle of space, where you've always wanted to be. The stars seem cold and distant, but you know that there is much more to them than that, that they are balls of fire that can warm you, encourage you, consume you."

His voice had become much deeper, mesmerising and captivating. At that moment I woke up sharply from the trance I had put myself in.

"Did you try to hypnotise me?" I laughed in disbelief.

"It worked, didn't it? You've calmed down."

"Yes, thank you," I massaged my head, "Could you not tell anyone...?"

"You know perfectly well you don't have to ask me that, Stella."

"I know, but..."

"I know. Me too," I listened to his acrimony and smiled as I realised that we would always be on the same page as each other, we would always know what would happen to each other and we would always be there for each other. "Nightmares?"

"Yes."

"Don't you have anything handy?" he asked.

"I have four guns," I laughed with him. "In case that's not enough."

"That'll go a long way to sleep," he joked. "Do you want me to pop in and drop off a couple of...?"

"No. No need," I ran my hand over my face, "Did I really kill them?"

"There is no proof of this, but you were the only one who was present and fled before the explosion. You were only seven years old and you performed better than the agency's rookies."

"I don't need you to applaud me for a murder, Brian... What are you doing up at three in the morning?"

"It turns out that I have been sent on a last-minute mission. I've had five coffees."

"I don't think that is healthy."

"I finished it two hours ago and I can't sleep."

"Carrying out missions without following the rules again?"

"I forgot how much you like to think you're the smartest girl in the room, Stella."

"Sorry to crush your ego, princess," I bit my lip.

"Yeah, yeah. As if I didn't know you."

"You're pretty active for three in the morning, even if you've had five coffees."

"Yeah..." something was bothering him, that 'Yeah' was too long and heavy, more than it should have been. "You'd better rest. I'll tell you in the morning."

"I take you at your word."

I hung up the call and lay on my back in bed, waiting for sleep to come. However, every time I closed my eyes I saw Styles' mother's eyes, every time I looked at the exit door the clown was in the dark and if I concentrated hard I could hear the faint: Murder, murder.

I tossed and turned in bed until my shoulder creaked and cramped with a contracture. I decided that, since it looked like I wasn't going to sleep any more that night, I would go for a run.

I got dressed for it and ran until my legs gave out. It was about five in the morning when I finished running.

I went upstairs, showered and put on clean clothes to go with Hypatia to spy on Lydia. After five minutes in front of the window wondering whether to take a taxi or walk, I realised that it was too early to show up in front of Hypatia's house. I'm sure she wasn't awake, she loved to sleep more than she needed when she was on holiday and nothing was planned for early the next morning.

I reflected for a long time on the memories I had had.

I was sitting on the bed when I remembered what had happened before I went to the orphanage where I met Brian. I trembled with terror as I remembered what I had done and understood my best friend's phrase: 'I already have a criminal record, why not add to it?' I swallowed. I was recorded that time, wasn't I? I wasn't sure, but something told me I was. The scariest thing about that memory was how young I was and how cautious I had been. I trembled from head to toe.

A cloud of overwhelm covered my head. I couldn't think clearly.

"How do you manage to live with it?" I asked the shadow that had just slipped into the darkness of the room. "How do you do it?"

He sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

"You get used to the feeling. That cloud of guilt that gnaws at you now will help you not to make mistakes in the future."

"I don't want to do it again."

He nodded. It seemed as if he had thought the same thing many years ago, the first time he killed someone. Or saw someone murdered and didn't stop it. In his face you could see remorse and identification.

"Have you gone for a run yet?"

"Yes."

"Did it help?"

"No."

"You can study, it works for me."

I hadn't thought about it. When I was worried about something I always ended up covered in books and papers. That time I hadn't and I was overwhelmed, with a discomfort that wouldn't let me think.

"What career will they pay you?"

"They're going to pay for physics at MIT," he put up his hair and lay down. "I'm going to get a scholarship. They want me to be one of the best career spies in the world."

"Have you been through the training yet?"

"Unfortunately for me, no. They say I would have to pass once I finished my degree, that I was too young to get in when I was recruited. The good thing is that I would go with you, if they accept you."

"What if I don't want to?"

"I'm afraid, Stella, that will be impossible."

I closed my eyes and threw my head back.

"Would I have to go for sure?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know which department I would be in?"

"Foreign affairs. They would send you to those countries that have us on the ropes. They would use you as a hired assassin."

I looked at him in disbelief, holding my hands to my head. I could hardly move because my muscles were so stiff. I was paralysed. It was as if my whole life had been planned without me realising it. Brian put his hand on my shoulder to reassure me and smiled at me in the dimness of the room.

"I can't," I shook my head. I can't. Not again. I don't want to do it again. That wasn't me, Brian. That wasn't me."

"What did you do?"

I strongly denied.

"You'll get over it when you do it again," he tried to reassure me.

"What if I like it too much? What if I became the most bloodthirsty of them all?" The terror I felt prevented me from focusing on any one thing, I moved my hands restlessly from side to side, I didn't know what to do with them. I squeezed, squeezed and scratched them lightly as I ran my fingers over my skin. I didn't notice the pain, I was too overwhelmed for that and when it happened, I couldn't control myself. "What if it wasn't enough to calm my cravings?"

Ask me for a partner. You're going to get one anyway. Ask me. We've known each other for years, we know what's on our minds. We'd just have to stop each other.

"Did it happen to you?" he smiled mischievously and shook his head.

"No. I came close once, but it was because my stupid partner was teasing me."

"Do you think I won't annoy, tease and taunt you?" I laughed, with a sly tone that I didn't think I was capable of bringing out.

"My dear, your presence alone is unbearable, but it's much better than that jerk."

"Oh, darling!" I stroked her cheek. "You don't know what a burden I can be."

"Love, you're not so heavy," he kissed my hand. "I'm sure you weigh less than a feather."

I laughed and got up from the bed. He followed my action and lifted me up, putting his hands on my waist. I stopped breathing momentarily, I wasn't expecting it. I was thankful to be in the dark, because I felt my cheeks burning. I became unbalanced and had to rest my arms on his shoulders.

"You're not as heavy as you say you are," he said as he put me back on the floor. "You're good at lying. One more thing they'll hire you for," he joked.

"Since when am I in your beautiful plan to become the world's leading power?" I asked once I had my feet on the ground.

"Ever since they discovered your abilities. A video surfaced that they destroyed to hide you from the rest of the world, of a murder about thirteen years ago, featuring you. I haven't seen it, but I know it made my superior's blood run cold, in a good way."

"When did it come out?"

"About two years ago," I covered my eyes with one hand, placing the other in front of my stomach when I heard the answer. "You got their attention the hard way. The assassins who have trained for it are far worse than you were. They want you with them, with us. They have been watching you for many years. They haven't taken their eyes off your notes. They couldn't get into your house, but they could know that you are an exceptional student, quiet and much more knowledgeable than you appear to be. They know that you deliberately failed your exams so as not to take the place of your friends. I didn't show them the cards."

I tensed my jaw. They should have read our correspondence. The government we had, like all governments at the time, knew nothing about private property and loved to stick their noses where they were not wanted. I wondered how much more they would have read. If they had been reading for two years or more... I hoped not.

"They've read them, then," I crossed my arms.

"I will search the archives as soon as I drop you off wherever you went."

I smiled sheepishly.

"Stop that, please."

"Dressed so you wouldn't go for a run and conclude that you were going out to do something?" He winked at me, opened the door and let me in. I rolled my eyes and walked through. "Where were you going?" He leaned over me as I passed him, goose bumps rising on my skin as I felt him so close.

As I looked at him, in the light of the corridor I could see the sarcastic, mischievous smile he had. I had to control myself not to copy him.

"You should know that I like privacy very much."

"I know that. But you should know that it's impossible not to answer me," he winked.

"Impossible, no."

He was always a great friend. Charming only to those who really knew him, polite to his superiors and a pain in the ass to his enemies. He never left my side no matter what a million things happened. He didn't care when I threw it all away and he followed me blindly, abandoning his career, his friends and probably everything he took for granted in life. I wrecked his whole life, even though he says over and over again and tries to deny it, and he stuck with me to the end. Because that's what friends do, he told me. Friends don't abandon each other.

"We'll see," he put his arm around my shoulders and we walked out into the street.

He stopped me in front of a Bugatti La Voiture Noire that was parked a few metres from the hotel door.

I pulled his arm away and ran up to it to examine it.

I couldn't believe it. There it was, in front of me, with its fifteen hundred horsepower and sixteen hundred Nm of torque. It smelled like a new car on the outside, I didn't want to imagine what it would feel like inside.

"Did they lend it to you?"

"They know how passionate you are about cars," he whispered close enough and in a voice I didn't know, seductive and magical, that I shivered. "They want you with them, Stella. They're going to do everything they can to keep you there. Make it difficult, make them beg for your services. Don't show your emotions, be cool as ice and smart as only you are."

"You told them I wanted one?"

"No, Stella."

"Have they read those letters?"

"I hope not. Be careful what you say inside the car, I'm sure there are eavesdroppers."

"Do you think me so clumsy?" I folded my arms and looked him in the eye, trying to sound and look nonchalant. "Have we not spoken to each other for so long?"

He was silent. Waiting for me to say something different, but I left him there, waiting, as I waited for his letters. Fuck him.

I got into the car, sat in the driver's seat and waited patiently for him to hand me the keys to start this beauty. He stared at me mischievously for a while, his arms folded. His irises seemed to sparkle, as they always did before he let out some scathing, blustering comment. To my surprise, however, he said nothing. His lips curved into a sly smile and he held out the keys.

What was that for? I thought it was to see if I could or couldn't handle whatever I was getting into.

I snatched the keys out of her hands and put her in the ignition.

It sounded like glory, a purr that ended in a roar and made me close my eyes trying to engrave the sound in my mind. I didn't want to drive it just once in vain. It wasn't just once. I would repeat the sensation over and over in my head until I was sick of it.

When I opened my eyes, Brian was looking straight ahead and had opened his mouth slightly.

"If you're going to say anything about the car, shut up. I know all about this one," I caressed the steering wheel and stepped on the accelerator without taking off the handbrake. It sounded like the choirs of angels. "Tell me, where did you get it?"

"Sometimes I hate you deeply and the rest I just hate you," he smiled and turned to look at me. "You're like nothing else, Stella, like nothing else."

"I know."

I took off the handbrake and pulled out of the car park. It drove like silk despite being older than me. It must be one of those reinventions that the brand used to make, with all the technology of today, same model as before. The steering wheel turned as if it had just been greased, it didn't cost anything.

I was going the speed limit. I was about to step on the accelerator, but Brian put his hand on my thigh, stopping me. I looked away from the road for two seconds to see him shake his head. He had thought so too, but seeing this Bugatti model, which disappeared years ago in an explosion at the museum where it was on display, was already drawing too much attention from pedestrians and other drivers.

I turned off the engine two streets away from Hypatia's aunt and uncle's house once I parked. I tapped the steering wheel with a strange rhythm that sounded like a war march and I didn't know where I had got it from.

"Are you leaving already?"

"Yes, I'll see you later," I kissed his cheek, thinking that they would have set up cameras as well as microphones, to engage him."Bye."

"Goodbye, madwoman."

"Idiot," I said before slamming the door shut.

When I reached the small area where Hypatia's aunt and uncle's cottage was located, I noticed how quiet it was. Not a single bird was singing and you couldn't hear the neighbours talking to each other, not even the families living there. What disturbed me the most was that I saw two dogs pass by, side by side, and they didn't even move.

I rang Hypathy's doorbell without taking my eyes off my surroundings. I was too nervous for that. Her uncle came out of the door.

"Good morning, I was looking for Hypatia," I smiled kindly at the tall man with a couple of grey hairs who opened the door for me. "Is she at home?"

"You must be Stella," he shook my hand as if we had just signed a pact. "Hypatia has told us so much about you," she turned slightly away from the entrance. "Please come in."

"Thank you very much."

I entered the hall guided by Hypatia's uncle.

"Since you came to town, everything seems to have calmed down," he said as he climbed the stairs. "You could stay!"

He laughed at his own joke. It seemed very strange to me. I should have been worried at the time, but I wasn't. The dogs couldn't be quiet or pass by each other so still. Dogs couldn't keep quiet and stand so still next to each other. I should have seen it, but I didn't.

Hypatia ran down to where I was, hugged me and said goodbye to everyone.

She drove me to her garage, where the van was, and motioned me in with a nod of her head. She was smiling broadly as she turned on all the computers in the room.

"I bugged all of Lydia's house, three of her bags and the friendship pendant she wears," I looked at her in disbelief. "All yesterday."

"You alone?"

"Kevin helped quite a lot, to tell you the truth," he pulled his hair into a ponytail, but unravelled it automatically. "Let's see what these guys are up to."

"The cameras?" I asked, seeing that we could not only hear what was going on in Lydia's aunt and uncle's house, but also see from the windows, mobile phones and laptops everything that was going on inside.

"I've hacked into the city's camera system, Kevin has helped me with the ones on the computers and mobile phones. He'll be here in a while, after he drops Styles off," she looked at me and muffled the noise coming out of the speakers. "What did you get out of your friend yesterday?"

"That he can be trusted. He may be an asshole and behave like one, but I trust him. He needed to get inside to see what was going on..."

"He's a spy, you see? He is trained to lie."

"He can' t lie to me, Hypatia."

"Yeah... Like you'd know that," she leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrow.

"He is incapable of it, Hypatia. He can lie to everyone except me."

"How do you know that? How do you know you're not just another person he's conning to get information about the conspiracy against the president?" Her tone was rising, she was just trying to get information out of me about my best friend, but at that moment all I could think was that she would kill me for not giving him reason to trust him. "How do you know he won't sell you out at the drop of a hat? How do you know he won't betray you?"

"I thought you had full confidence in my judgement yesterday!" I became defensive.

"How do you know he's not lying to you?" She leaned over me, pressing harder. She was an expert at it. She always knew how you would react if she pushed the right buttons. She and her little mind tricks had gotten a man to beg for his death, a president to tell her the secrets he wanted most, and a person to do what she wanted. And they made me blurt out something I didn't want to blurt out, because it would set my friend's prodigious brain on fire.

"Because he would have done it many years ago!" I remembered how he had not told the government or his superiors about the disappearance of one of the girls, a disappearance I did not know how to explain or describe. No one knew about it, it was just formulated as a missing persons case.

"Explain yourself."

"Around the time my uncle died, the same day I seem to remember, I made a mistake in one of my failed attempts to accompany him to the city hospital," I licked my lips. "I wrote to Brian telling him. Everything that had happened."

"It must have been something pretty big."

"Yes," I took a breath. "I told him everything, Hypatia. Everything. There wasn't a thing we didn't know about each other, despite the distance we were apart. Well," I reconsidered, "we knew almost everything about each other."

"Did you tell him about the group?"

"No. I would not sacrifice this for him. You will be my family, my sisters," she smiled sweetly, as no one had ever seen her and would ever see her, unless it was Lydia or I. "I could not lose you for him. I couldn't lose you for him."

She smiled in relief and turned the audio back on. Styles still didn't show up, so we decided to wait, talking for the people passing by on the street and the people in the house. We let out a couple of laughs as we started talking for the dogs we passed.

When we connected the audio from Lydia's aunt and uncle's house, I heard how the aunt was on edge because the rest of her classmates' children had received their admission letters to the universities they wanted months ago. The uncle was trying to calm her down, telling her that it was still early days, that it was one of the most prestigious universities.

Hypatia, who knew Lydia's cousin very well, rolled her eyes a couple of times as she listened to the boy's false complaints along with those of the mother. Mister Princeton wanted to get to the top of any career, no matter what it was. He wanted to be the best at everything, no matter if he stepped on heads.

Lydia was locked in her room, staring at her mobile phone, the screen of which was hacked. We could see her smile as she talked to Styles. Her cheeks turned pink as she listened to my brother's calm, innocent voice. I had never seen love at first sight until that day. She had a tremendous crush on my big brother.

"Can you get into my brother's mobile?"

"I haven't reached that level," she scratched the crown of her head as she looked at the cameras in the street. "I can handle security cameras and even the Pentagon, that's only if I have the manual we found in the town library that belonged to... I don't know. Pentagon security hasn't changed for many, many years, since they wrote the book by hand and hid it in the conspiracy section of the library. But these mobiles," she took out her mobile phone and waved it. "They're too much for me. I'd have to call Kevin. He's the one who whispers to computers. I'm the one who whispers to people. And you to the guns," she turned to me, smiling. "I've seen you put together an AK-47 with wooden parts in my house, you built it without looking and I just realised. How?"

"I don't know," I shrugged and frowned, trying to think of something, I can't remember what; and if I can't remember, it must not be important. "I haven't read anything about Soviet weapons so far."

"The subconscious can be a wonderful thing."

We heard the door of the house ring several times. Hypatia got out of the van leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I looked at the screen. Styles had already arrived at Lydia's aunt and uncle's house, so I assumed it was Kevin knocking on the door.

Listening to other people's voices and conversations from a computer, I realised how easy it was to spy on people. With just a computer and two mobile phones you could gather enough information to blackmail them for a couple of weeks. I wondered if they were doing it to me; gathering enough information to later knock on my door and threaten to show it. I froze in terror and started to come up with wrong plan after wrong plan to get out of the situation. I was so nervous that my hands began to shake slightly. I felt like screaming, crying and everything for being trapped in that shit that I'm still trapped in... At least I'm partially out. I am now a person covered in half as much shit as I was in that van. I am calm.

Kevin and Hypatia entered with laughter.

"Hey Mutant, how was yesterday?" he raised his eyebrows repeatedly, trying to prod me into saying something.

"Great."

"Nothing else?" Kevin nudged me twice, smiling.

"What do you want to hear, that I slept with him?" Kevin wiped all signs of friendship from his face, choked hard on his own saliva and looked at me in terror, disappointment and anguish. "Because it's a lie and I'm too young for that shit."

Hypatia laughed out loud for hours, remembering that conversation. Over and over again. She was going to torment Kevin to death with it. The two of them spent the day together, teasing and helping each other at the same time. I'll never understand how they managed to do those two things at the same time.

"Hypatia, isn't it too easy to watch people?" She didn't know what I meant. "What I'm saying is that we, without any training, are capable of getting into any place. Imagine the army of computer scientists the government must have. We'd be surrounded, we wouldn't be able to go anywhere without them noticing. Do you understand?"

Kevin hit his head with his hand and looked worriedly at Hypatia.

I expected her to tell me not to worry, that the security of the traffic and security cameras were not on top of us. However, her face told a different story. I expected reassurance and all I got was a look that told me that the group's security was compromised up to its neck, that they might have us on video. All because it hadn't occurred to us before that streets have cameras, not just buildings.

Only one thing came out of Hypatia's mouth:

"Shit."