Otter Creek innocent iii

He smiled at her, and her heartbeat filled her ears. She turned, but she didn't want to know. She didn't want to see her family again. They weren't her family, they weren't hers, they weren't her. Ana Tema Redhawk; the girl who never was. She knew what she was. The Anathema.

The Anathema.

Trembling silence and pinprick pupils and his voice in her head, in her eyes and nose and mouth and it felt like choking. He was talking to God. Her legs shook and then faltered and folded slowly beneath her. Speak to Him. She didn't want to. God never loved her, not her, ugly twisted little thing that she was. Twice abandoned. Daughter of a witch. Cursed. The Anathema.

Ana buried her face in her forelegs and screamed.