But not untouched.
My eyes stayed locked on her, as if looking away for even a second would make her vanish.
Elena.
The name lived in my head like something that had never fully died.
The girl.
Not the woman standing in front of me now.
The girl who had found me when I had nothing left to give the world.
I was nine years old. She was eight.
That was when I first met her.
Not in a place where children are meant to meet—but in the shadowed mouth of a cave, during one of my few desperate attempts to escape her father’s cellar.
At the time, I didn’t know who she was.
Didn’t know whose blood ran through her veins.
All I knew was that she sat beside me in the dirt like I wasn’t something to be discarded.
She brought me water, her hands steady despite how small they were, and tore strips of cloth to wrap my wounds as best as she could.
She stayed with me after that, talking softly as if her voice alone could keep me anchored, even laughing at times when I couldn’t find the strength to respond.
For a few stolen hours, I let myself believe in something—something fragile and almost foolish.
Hope.
And in that quiet space between pain and darkness, I made promises I didn’t fully understand how to keep. Childish. Desperate.
“I’ll find you again,” I told her.
“I’ll protect you.”
“We’ll be together when we’re grown.”
Words spoken by a boy who didn’t yet understand what it meant to belong to men like Vasquez.
We spent fourteen hours together after that.
Hours that felt like something I’d never known—something almost safe.
Eventually, exhaustion pulled us under, and we both fell asleep.
That’s when they found me.
Her father’s men came with anger sharp enough to cut the air.
They woke me like I was nothing, like the attempt itself was an insult.
Their hands were rough as they dragged me away, and the cave—our brief hiding place—disappeared behind me in seconds.
I remember screaming.
