M a l e d e t t o >adj.  cursed, damned.
 >ORIGIN Italian. From Latin malefacere - 'do wrong'.
 

Rome had been a long time ago.
 
Those days she had been happier. Sometimes she would smile, perhaps even laugh. Those days she could pretend the Centre didn’t exist. Different place, different prison - but now she realised she’d preferred those bars. They’d protected her.
 
She’d pretended to ignore the beggar in the street that had pointed at her - the embodiment of innocence in her chaste uniform - and uttered a word she would secretly recollect every night for the rest of her life.
 
Maledetto, the woman had hissed.
 
Friends laughed; she joined in.
 
But she’d been crying inside.