“My mind is the only sanctuary that has not been stolen from me."

Christopher Paolini

To Quinn, a battered Canadian child, her glance at the lush estate carved into the side of a mountain in the jungle could, in other happier circumstances, have impressed her as an imposing sight. But at the time, it was just one more meaningless stop. It was late in the day. She was hungry, dirty, itchy and irritable.  

It had been otherwise, a typical, bright sunny day. By the time the white van arrived at its final destination, she’d been chained in it for days and dismissed the imposing view altogether. They pulled up in an alley behind an outbuilding on the grounds of the estate. It was in mountainous country, a few kilometres outside of Cartagena. Banco opened the cargo door, armed with his drawn pistol. Not that he needed it, that was just to impress the customer; a man known internationally as a major drug dealer, El Heledaro. Banco motioned for his passengers to disembark by waving the gun around. The only passengers he had left were five dispirited girls ranging in age from the youngest at six or seven years old to the eldest at least sixteen. All were dishevelled, dirty and barely conscious. They’d been given sedatives to render them cooperative except for the youngest, who was too young to risk using drugs to sedate. 

They had travelled joined together with collars and chain at the neck. They were led into the outbuilding. Inside the building were beds, a trestle table, stools, chairs and a few girls in better shape than the new arrivals. Hangrails lined a couple of the walls, hung with girls’ smocks. Another room had toilets, showers and sinks. It was a dorm. The new girls were unchained, shown to beds and told to strip.

No one made a move until the girl closest to the woman who apparently was their guard clubbed her into action. They were all nude seconds after that. They were shown where to bathe and then get dressed in the smocks. 

One after the other, they were led out of the building to the big house to be presented to El Heledaro, a drug lord who dabbled in child trafficking. His specialty was girls between the ages of a well-developed twelve to sixteen years old. Older than that, or younger, he had no interest. The girls were returned to the outbuilding one by one. It was well after dark before Quinn was led to the main house. It was her turn. She was last. The house was not just a house, she learned; it was the closest thing to a palace Quinn had ever seen. 

She was shown by a servant into a huge common room where she was examined critically by two men lounging on brass-studded leather couches. The slim, dark-haired older man looked at her and then turned to her trafficker. “What the fuck is this, Banco? She’s barely out of diapers. Why is she here? Are you wasting my time again? You know what I like, Banco. This kid is not it.”

The trafficker hesitated then, “She’s a bonus, boss. Take a good look, Señor. She is amazing. She has rare potential. She’s a jewel.”

“I don’t care if she’s a jewel; I don’t want to feed and clothe her for seven years waiting for her to reach that potential if she ever does reach her potential. How many hands has she passed through on her way here?”

“Only had three so far. According to Jacob, she is pure.”

“The girl is untouched then?”

“As far as I know. Ask her.”

The drug lord, a slim man with the comfortable beginnings of a pot belly, arose from the couch and approached her. He put his hand on her head and stroked her hair. “No one is going to hurt you, child, at least, not here,” he said. “But things are different here than you are used to. Where are you from?”

“Canada,” she replied.

“Ahhh, the frozen north. Where did you leave your parents?”

“Trinidad.” She glared at him, she was in a bad mood and not inclined to be trifled with.

“You have a pretty voice. You’re a pretty little girl,” he said, crouching down. “Have you ever been fondled down here?” He reached out and caressed her crotch.

She reached out and punched him in the eye. He fell over backwards.

Banco lunged for her. When he grabbed her, she kicked him in the shin. He bent over to grab his shin, and she punched him in the eye, too. He yelled and let her go to grab his eye. She would have run, but she had no idea where to run. So, she stood her ground.

The slim man lying on the floor started laughing. He sat up and looked at her. “What did you do to the last man who did that to you, little girl?”

“I chopped his dick off,” she said.

“What? How did you do that?”

“It was dark. He put a knife down on the mattress, thinking I wouldn’t see it, then he lifted me up, put me on the mattress and pulled my frock up. He pulled my panties off. He took his shorts off. I could see his big thing like a pole sticking out. The knife was right there. It was really dark. He didn’t know I’d seen the knife. I just picked it up, yanked his dick out straight and chopped it off. It was a very sharp knife.”

“What did he do?”

“He yelled and screamed, jumped up and down a couple of times, then fell off the plank and into the swamp. He drowned.”

“What did you do with his dick?”

“I fed it to the fish.”

“Where did this happen?”

“In a little wooden hut in the swamp, sir.” 

“Was anyone else there?”

“Yes, Lionel was there.”

“Who was he?”

“He was the bad man who took me.”

“I guess you didn’t kill him then, did you? Or you wouldn’t be here now.”

“No, I cut him too, but I had nowhere to run other than to jump into the swamp after Jocko.  Lionel fucked me. Some day I will kill him if he lives long enough.”

“I like your style, little girl, but you are not for me. You’re too dangerous.” He turned, and yelled, “Banco, I don’t know what you were thinking, bringing me a girl like this. She’s no virgin! How old are you kid?”

“Seven.”

“There you go. What the FUCK am I going to do with a seven-year-old murderer? You old bastard! Get her out of here, and don’t let her chop you up on your way out!” He pushed them both to the door. 

It was dark out. The dogs were loose. Banco and the little girl were no sooner out the door when they were attacked by the dogs. Or they should have been attacked by the dogs. As the dogs attacked, the little girl ran at them, arms wide open. There were two of them with big teeth. They skidded to a halt, flummoxed. She threw herself on one of them and hugged it. She was crying. The dogs were disarmed. The two men stood watching dumbfounded. Banco, for his part, was happy to see it, considering that moments before, he’d thought he was going to die or suffer permanent injury.

Eventually, the Lord of the Hacienda pulled the girl off the dogs, took her back inside and deposited her on the couch. “Stay here,” he said, then went back outside. She could hear more yelling and screaming. Eventually, the van left.

The man came back in and sat next to her on the couch. 

“Si, I think we’ll keep you. But you aren’t on holiday here. You’ll have to earn your keep, otherwise, you’ll be working the streets and I promise you, you won’t like that.”

“I believe you, Mister, but save yourself a lot of trouble and tell the police where I am. My parents will be worried about me.”

El Capo laughed, grabbing her arm. “You have no idea where you are, do you?”

She pulled her arm out of his grip. The recoil jerked her elbow back and hit another man who’d approached silently behind her. She got him right square in the balls. He gasped, bending over double.

El Capo grabbed her again and sat her on his lap. “I’m not going to bite you or hurt you, little girl. Just settle down. What do you think, Pedro, does this one have potential?”

“I can’t say, sir, so far, my experience has been brief and extremely painful. Maybe not a good omen.”

 “I’ll keep her anyway. She’s not boring. She’s fun. What’s your name in Canada?” 

“Quinn. What’s yours, sir?”

“El Heledaro. It’s a house favourite, but you are going to call me Daro. Nobody else can do that. How old are you again?”

“Seven.”

“Fine. Here, we’re going to call you Pip, not Quinn. A name like Quinn will travel like a bird, and I don’t like news about my life being public information.

“Pedro, take Pip to the kitchen to get cleaned up. Introduce her to Esmeralda. Tell Ezzy I want Pip to learn everything about food and how to prepare it.” He turned back to her, “Learn everything. I want you to be an expert on food. I’m going to give you a chance to do something to take your mind off your parents rather than being shot in the jungle or turned into a junkie on the streets. Let’s see what you make of it. Besides that, I need to lose weight. I don’t want to feel like I’m on a restricted diet. So you and Esmerelda are going to see to it that my meals are tasty, interesting and slimming.”

Esmeralda, the cook, was not pleased at first to have a child underfoot who knew nothing about a kitchen or food and spoke no Spanish. She was also too short to work a stove. However, Pedro repeated what the boss had said. It wasn’t safe to argue with the boss. Teaching this child about food meant she’d have to teach Pip Spanish too. Her workload had just increased substantially. She decided she’d turn this little girl into an advantage or a weapon. She would know which in good time.

Esmerelda soon learned that this was no ordinary child. She could think for herself, she learned how to speak fluently without an accent very quickly. Before long, she had fit in seamlessly. The staff in the big veranda-style kitchen became accustomed to her. She learned the processes, the people and the food. She was a bright, enthusiastic girl who wanted to know everything about the kitchen, how it worked and all about the foods she was supposed to learn. She worked in the gardens too. She could often be seen between the rows cultivating the garlic, onions and the rest. The boss and his staff came to see her less as a slave and more as part of the family. In moments when Pip was elsewhere, she was the subject of conversation. In time, Daro fancied her as his daughter and spent as much time as he could afford with her. She, in turn, came to see him, despite his obvious criminal activities, as a father. He was smitten as he’d never been before in his life.

He provided for her. She had her own bedroom in the main house. She was soon into everything. She reminded Daro of a kitten with a ball of yarn. He saw no traces of homesickness. But he knew that was no indication the girl wasn't homesick. Maybe she was too smart to show it.