Why did you buy me? Because I needed help. That isn't true. The way she looked at me made me feel as if she could see straight through every excuse I might try to hide behind. There were other women there, she continued. cheaper women, younger women, women without trouble following them.
Why did you choose me? I didn't answer immediately. The truth was I didn't fully understand it myself. I don't know, I finally admitted. But when I saw you sitting in that cage, something told me I couldn't just walk away.
Something told you? Yes. Seiya stepped toward me, then another step. In moments only a few inches separated us. Then tell me something, she said quietly.
Do you want to know why every one of the former buyers brings me back? Yes. Do you want to know what is marked on my back? My heartbeat began to pound harder. Yes.
For a long moment, Seiya held my gaze. She seemed to be studying every movement of my face, weighing every breath, deciding whether trusting me with her secret would save her or condemn her all over again. At last, she slowly exhaled. All right, I'll show you. But first, you have to promise me something.
What? You will not hand me over to the men hunting me. What men? The desert jackals, killers, thieves, every filthy bastard who wants possession of what I carry. What are you carrying?
Seiya turned away from me. Slowly, she began undoing the buttons of her blouse. For one heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe. The fabric slipped from her shoulders, revealing the bare skin of her back. What I saw there stole every word from my mouth.
Seiya's back was covered in markings, but they weren't ordinary scars. They weren't ordinary tattoos, either. They were thin, precise lines laid into her skin with almost impossible care. Symbols twisted among one another. Fine paths crossed and separated.
Shapes emerged inside other shapes. Then little my eyes began to understand what I was looking at. It was a map, a complete map. There were mountains, rivers, trails, and small crosses marking different locations. Every detail had been etched across her skin with a precision so exact it hardly seemed possible that human hands could have made it.
"Good Lord," I whispered. Seiya turned toward me, holding the front of her blouse against her chest. Her voice trembled when she spoke. Now you know. She swallowed hard.
Now you understand why every one of the former buyers eventually brings me back. Then why are they so afraid of you? I asked. What in God's name is that? A map.
A map to what? Seiya drew in a slow breath before answering. to a treasure, a lost fortune hidden more than a hundred years ago. For a moment, my thoughts spun so fast I could barely make sense of what I was hearing. How did that end up on your back? Who put it there?
My grandfather, Nako, was an Apache shaman. Before he died, he marked the map into my skin. He told me I had been chosen to protect it, that I was its guardian, and that the map could survive only as long as it remained alive within me. Why you? Because it isn't an ordinary map.