Annie took an involuntary step backwards. It had been a long time since she'd heard that word; she hoped it didn't show on her face.
Unnatural. Evil. Cast out of God's sight. Deacon Clyde had a lot of words for what Annie was, when at the tender age of six she had thought it fit to warn him that she had dreamed the night before that he'd twist his ankle on his porch stoop that coming summer. She had been to young then to know better; her mother sat her down for The Talk, quite a different one than most young girls got from their mothers.
"You can't let people know," her mother had said. "They wouldn't understand. We're not bad, baby, we're just... different."
Pastor Davis had been kinder, telling her she had a gift, but she should do as her mother said and keep it to herself as long as she could. She wasn't bad after all... just different.
The 'different' part had never been completely clear, but she knew that on paper, she looked just fine. She dodged medical tests when she could, knowing that her blood would be just that... different.
"What do you know about it?" she spat out, too startled by his words to stop herself.