In a struggling former Southern cotton mill town, Darlene Powell takes a cocktail waitress job at the new casino to fund nursing school, but is gradually manipulated into prostitution, losing her sense of self until a moment of clarity prompts her escape. Though permanently changed by her trauma, she returns home to her mother, resumes her nursing school plans, and begins helping other exploited women escape similar fates, finding purpose in her pain even as the casino's influence over the town continues to grow.