Whatever she had come to know was bad and hurting her. Enough that it had her crying again. The smell of the tears fresh around her.
"She was always nice to everyone around her. No matter what happened, always kind and sweet," he heard Penny speak, her words coming out muffled as her head continued to rest on his chest, "At least that was what I knew about her. Back in the day...there were villagers who would pass comments on us. Talking about how I didn't have a father and how my mother was a deranged person because of it."
"Was she?" asked Damien, holding her in his arms.
"More than that," Penny pulled away from his arms. Sniffing and wiping her face with the sleeve of her right hand. Her eyes were wet, her eyelashes having specks of water in them with her eyes that looked void and lost, "I had wounds on my body. Black and blue which appeared every now and then when I was young. With the hostility between us and the villagers that had formed, they often punished me."
