Despite the warning that I should stay still, I did not. I opened the door and stepped out, wandering about the long-winded corridors and marveling at the impressive art that decorated the walls. Some of the illustrations I was familiar with as they represented the gods of our tradition. Others, not so much. I walked and walked until I heard the sound of foreign voices that uttered my name. Slowly, information filled my brain—why I'd been brought there, and how I was to serve El Señor. Even in my innocent mind, I realized that his purpose for me was sick and perverted, and I quickly resolved to escape. Maybe I would not have a home to return to, but I at least would have my virtue intact.

Yet that was the second lesson I learned. No one left the hacienda. Not alive, anyway.

El Señor came to my room and didn't find me there. He had all his guards search the premises until they dragged me from my hiding place and brought me in front of him. Those fine clothes had already been torn and soiled in my attempt to fight the guards off. One look at my rebellious gaze, and El Señor decided to teach me a lesson. He ordered his guards to strip me naked, deriving sick pleasure from seeing me fight to keep what was left of my modesty. When I put up too much of a fight, he intervened personally.

That was the third lesson I learned. El Señor had a heavy hand.

I lift my hand to trace the contour of my cheek, the past sting reverberating into the present.

He smiled as he struck me. Again and again until my skin broke, until I was bruised and battered, and my blood stained the ground.

I remember doing my best to hold on, yelling at him that I wouldn't allow him to touch me.

But despite all my protestations, the pain soon proved too much even for my strong will. At some point, I must have passed out, for when I awoke, it was to find my entire upper body marked with strange writings, like a tattoo imprinted on my skin to remind me of the day my fate had changed, forever. After my rebellion, El Señor didn't want to be bothered with me, so I was sentenced to labor away in his temples, doing work that no woman, let alone a child of thirteen, should have done. Yet that was preferable to being his toy.

El Señor might not have raped me that night, but the marks on my skin were proof that he had done something—that he had stolen a part of me I could never get back.

Now, knowing that these strange tattoos are not his doing, I don't know how to feel about them anymore. For almost half my life, I've forced myself to hate them because they reminded me of him.