She stayed at the new home for a year before the human traffickers were caught and she was rescued by the police.
The police pitied her and wanted to send her to an orphanage.
But Nina Donovan, only seven years old at the time, refused.
'Even if I starve to death,' she thought back then, 'I won't let anyone else control my fate.'
Naive as she was, she already understood what it meant to be shackled.
It meant endless laundry, endless beatings, hands and feet covered in sores, a starving stomach, and leering, malicious gazes.
She didn't want to escape one wolf's den just to be thrown into another.
She insisted on returning to the place where she had grown up.
At least there, her grandmother's grave would keep her company.
It made her feel like she was still being protected, still near her family.
The aunt who had swindled her money had run off with her husband, fleeing from loan sharks.
