For about two years as a teenager, Angie Conn, of Buffalo, was trapped by physical force.
For about eight years, she was trapped by the darkness that followed.
Conn, a survivor of human trafficking, couldn't see a future in front of her. When she looked in the mirror, she couldn't see her own self-worth. As a teenager, she never thought she'd live past age 20.
Conn's spiral into darkness started at age 15, when she was a victim of date rape. She felt isolated and ashamed, and, in search of numbness, she began to self-medicate with alcohol. She wondered if the experiences defined her value as a person.
"Shame is a complex feeling to be immersed in, because it's a prison unto itself," she said. "You act out, and you try to relieve some of that darkness that continues every morning to kind of creep back in."
After a second sexual assault, her fight-or-flight response kicked in, and she chose to escape.
Conn and a friend fled to California, where she became a victim of human trafficking.
According to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, 5,544 cases of human trafficking - a modern form of slavery in which adults or children are forced to perform labor or sex acts - were reported nationwide in 2015.
Of those, 10 were reported in West Virginia. But police and victim advocates admit they don't have an accurate figure for how often it happens in the state.
Advocates for victims of human trafficking say the number is likely higher. And they are also fighting the misperception that human trafficking is only a problem in other countries.
Conn, now 42, wants to combat that myth. To raise awareness of human trafficking, she - along with 160 other women, many of whom were also victims - will participate in the Freedom Challenge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. From Aug. 2-4, she will hike six to 11 miles daily on Snow King Mountain.
Funds she raises will benefit Operation Mobilization, a Christian organization that fights human trafficking, among other missions.
Conn and her friend hitchhiked with truckers to California. A man riding with one of the truckers told them he had a friend with a spare bedroom they could stay with in Long Beach.
After a week of being kind and charming, the man turned on them.
"They didn't look like monsters," Conn said. "It was very calculated looking back at it."
When they escaped to the streets, it wasn't long before another predator found her.
"It's almost like a railroad of predators out there," she said.
She was cold. She was hungry. And mostly, she wanted to feel accepted.
"I wanted someone to take care of me," she said.
Conn was finally able to escape and return home at 18. But she couldn't escape the darkness.
For the next eight years, she made "the wrong choices," as she refers to them. She was just existing. She was numbing the pain.
"I think I came to a point where, at 26 years old, where it was either die living like that, and that's how I would be remembered, or fight to come out of it."
A group of church women befriended her. They provided her with the support she needed as she developed a sense of self-worth.
"At first, you would kind of fight that because you don't feel worthy of that," she said, "and then you see that people are really genuine."
It was the first time she had thought in terms of a future.
"It was just little baby steps of waking up in that day and deciding I'm going to live today," she said.
She read her Bible. She went on lunch dates with church friends and, for the first time, talked about future plans. She woke up each day and made the decision to stay clean and to surround herself with the right people.
Does she feel worthy now?
"Yeah I do," she said, laughing. "And it's taken a lot of years. I mean, it's been 16 years."
Conn says she draws her strength from her faith.
And she draws her sense of worth from mainly two things - her three children, in whom she strives to instill self-confidence by reminding them how much she loves them every day, and her work with other women who are troubled, traumatized or broken.
This August, she will complete the Freedom Challenge the same way she completed her journey out of darkness. One step at a time.
"A good friend said to me we cannot continue to bury our pain alive because it will continue to crawl to the surface," she said. "I had to be willing to speak out about my life and come out of hiding in the hope that others could possibly find the courage to come out of hiding as well."
Conn is providing updates on her journey in a Facebook group (Angie's Freedom Challenge CLIMB (up a real mountain!!). Supporters can also donate online at fundraise.omusa.org/site/TR/Climb/General?px=1016022&pg=personal&fr_id=1150.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.