This is a prequel to The Gas Station Girl.

John Jensen’s aunt called me the gas station girl because that’s where John found me after my escape. But before I became the gas station girl, I was a DollarFly girl.

All of us came from backgrounds we were running away from. But we weren’t a therapy group, we were teenage prostitutes, lured by the promise of a better life than the ones we left behind. Some knew what they were getting into, which indicates how bad their old lives were. But some like me were lured through deception by a fake online friend with an offer of safety.

Many pimps control their girls with drugs, some with violence. Ours controlled us mainly by playing on our fears, vulnerabilities and ignorance, forging perverse relationships characterized by cheap motels, Monday Fundays, and weekly dates with our male handlers. After a failed escape attempt, threats of being sold to a gang, and realizing I had nowhere to go if I left, I resigned myself to this life, just like the others before me. We girls cared about each other and were determined to make the best of this deplorable life.

If I couldn’t escape to save myself, could I do it to save another?