Thanks to her spunk and quick wit, 9-year-old Calysta Cordova escaped from her abductor late last week.

The little girl was reported missing Thursday afternoon when she didn’t come back from school.

Steven Ryno, Calysta’s stepdad recalls that day, “My baby girl always walks through my door at 3:21 p.m. I noticed something was wrong, when she was nine minutes late. I called everyone, I panicked.”

Apparently, his concern was not unfounded. 18 hours after her abduction, Calysta was found at a Colorado Springs convenience store. 29-year-old suspect Jose Garcia took Calysta to the store where she promptly ran to the phone and called 911. When Garcia rushed into the store, the smart girl loudly yelled in front of witnesses, “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m waiting for my mom.”

A witness recounts to the police, “She looked at me, pointed into my eyes and just said, ‘I ain’t going nowhere. I’m waiting right here for my momma. I looked at the guy, he looked at me, into my eyes, spun around and just high-tailed it out of there.”

Unfortunately, Calysta didn’t come out unscathed. “She had two black eyes, bruises on her cheek. She was in bad shape. The bruise on her face was enormous,” a witness adds.

The brave girl was transported to the hospital for her injuries.  Garcia ran off, but was later accosted at a nearby bus stop

At her reunion with her daughter, mother Stephanie Cordova thanked everyone for Calysta’s safe return. “Thank you for everybody who watched, who kept an eye out for my daughter and brought her home,” she said through her tears. “Thank you for your kindness, for putting yourselves in our shoes and bringing my daughter home.”

As for the girl with the fighting spirit, she says that she got her fight from her dad. Her father taught her to always “stand up for myself.” Bravo!