Your life changed that night brother Chima came into your sleeping spot in the kitchen and lay beside you on the worn out mat. You were only ten, but you already heard stories, most of them from Somto who was three years older, and a house help like you. So you knew what was going to happen. It still didn't stop you from crying and shaking the moment he slipped his hands under your wrapper. Somto had told you that any form of protest was a big no. It only made them violent, she had told you. And she had been right.

The next day in school when you told Somto, she said it would happen more frequently, and that it would be easier for you if you pretended to be asleep, or pretended to be into it. Then she let you cry on her shoulder.

Again, Somto had been right, because brother Chima didn't stop coming. It happened on Thursday nights, whenever his wife travelled to Aba to buy new goods for weekend sales, and each time was worse than the last.

You wanted to tell your Aunty what was going on, but your friends warned you against it. Ihuoma, another girl you met through Somto, said that her madam put pepper in her vagina when she told her. That scared you, mostly because you knew your Aunty was capable of doing worse. Aunty Uju wasn't always wicked. There was a time she smiled at you, bought you paw paw and groundnuts when she came back from the market. She used to buy you clothes and take you everywhere she went. Back then, you called her Mummy, even though your own mother was alive and well.

When she lost her first baby after 3 years of waiting to an ectopic pregnancy, she started first by pulling you by your ears, then hitting you with her Dunlop slippers, leaving bright red bruises all over your body. She would then buy you clothes and snacks whenever she remembered that she had to treat you well so that God would bless her with her own child. After the second ectopic pregnancy, she told you to stop calling her Mummy, made you sleep in the kitchen at night and hit you till you forgot what your skin looked like before all the scars. So when her husband started inserting his manhood inside you, you kept it a secret from her.

When you were thirteen, you thought of running away. You and Somto planned it on those evenings you went to fetch water from Papa Amaechi's borehole. She told you how she had started stealing her Madam's money. Small small, she'd said, make them no catch me. You believed she was lucky; she was older, smarter and sharper than you would always be. She also had boyfriends who gave her gifts and money. She had the resources to run away. You were jealous because you knew you couldn't leave, especially since your younger sister, Ezinne, had started living with you people after your biological mother had died. You were young and afraid; you couldn't possibly run away with a five-year old. When Somto left, you felt like a peice of you left with her. 

One morning, when you were fifteen and Ezinne was seven, you noticed she walked with a slight limp. You had gone for a church program the previous night, but you were sure she walked fine before you left around ten o'clock. Even before you asked her if Brother Chima touched her pee pee, you already knew. Even when she denied it, you knew she was scared to tell the truth because you had  taught her that no one should touch her there. Your biggest fears were confirmed when she cried as you washed her vagina during bath time. 

You told Aunty Uju, and she gave you the worst beating you had ever received. She called you and your sister witches, said that the devil had sent you to destroy what was left of her home. And when a youth corper at your public school followed you to your Aunty's shop to know why you would have such bruises on your body, she starved you for two days.

So that Thursday night, you sat down and waited for him to come. You had already taken Ezinne to church and told her to wait for you. You were wearing the same night wear you wore the first time, only it was now snug in the chest and hip. As he hovered over you for the last time, you were very aware that the kitchen knife you had meticulously sharpened on the yard pavement in the afternoon was laying beside the old cupboard that you sometimes bumped your head into when you rolled over in your sleep. His eyes were closed and his thrusts were becoming sloppier when you drove the knife to his side of his stomach. His grunt of pleasure turned to that of pain as you stabbed him the second time.

You saw his eyes in the dim light provided by the lantern, and you could recognise the fear in them. Before you could stab him the third time, he caught on and quickly hit the bloodied knife out of your hands. It was your turn to be scared as you saw the knife on the other side of the room. He pressed down on your neck with his two hands, cutting off your air supply. You struggled beneath him, your hands on his, trying to stop him from choking you to death. At that moment, as dots started to form in your eyes, you decided that if you were going to die, then he would definitely die with you. You flayed your hands, looking for a way to inflict harm on him. As your hands landed on his face, you pressed both your thumbs into his eyes with the little strength you had. His grip on you loosened and you maneuvered your way on top of him, hitting him anywhere your hands could find. You scratched, you bit, you slapped and punched; for taking your innocence, for every Thursday that he defiled you, for taking the innocence of your seven-year old sister. He was already weak when you remembered the knife. You crawled over and took it, then came back to stab him in his crotch, in his head and face.

When you were sure he was dead, you took off your bloodied dress, cleaned your self with it, wore another one and went for your sister. As you headed for the church on the empty and dark street, you realized that for the first time, you looked forward to what the future held. You were going to leave with your sister, you didn't know where, but you knew you were going to be happy.