Dakota had to grow up fast! Her mother and grandmother both died within a few weeks of each other, in Commerce, Texas. She was left, at the age of 19, to settle all the legal, personal, and financial matters for the two women who had shaped her life.

When she completed getting the estate settled, she had 200 dollars, no home, no car, and no one to call family. While going through her mother's papers, she found her biological father's name and address in McAlester, Oklahoma. She read the letter he had sent her over 19 years ago, telling her mother to "get rid of it". Dakota was the "it" he wanted her mother to get rid of. But, where else could she go?

She knew she had a sister named Leslie. Maybe, she would welcome Dakota even if her father would not. By the time she decided to leave Commerce, Texas, and head for McAlester, Oklahoma, to the only family she had, there was 40 dollars in her pocket. Hitchhiking seemed the only choice.

Horror and brutality slammed her down to reality when she was kidnapped and brutalized. She was going to die. All her longing for family and belonging was going to end, with no one knowing who she was or caring what happened to her.

She craved love and belonging. She hoped to find those in family. But a man who was evil to the core had other ideas. He brutalized not only Dakota, but his family, too.

Sometimes, family is the most dangerous and least loving place to be, but surely, Leslie would not be like this man. She didn't have a white knight coming to rescue her.

She was not in the middle of a fairy tale. This was brutal reality. Whether she lived or died was up to her.