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Most girls remember dolls, ribbons, birthday cakes.
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Me? I remember shadows.
How they used to move before the lights even went off.
How I could tell what kind of night it’d be by the sound of the door slamming shut downstairs.
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I was seven when I learned not all monsters live under your bed.
Some sleep in the next room. Some wear your mother’s perfume. Some smile in your face before they sell you out for a fix.
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They called it “foster care,” but I called it trading hands.
One dirty couch to the next. One man’s rules to another’s hands.
By nine, I’d already counted more locks than birthdays.
And by eleven—I stopped waiting on anyone to come save me.
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I started learning passwords instead.
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I’d sneak into libraries and watch YouTube tutorials on coding, pretending it was just curiosity.
But truth was, I wanted something no one could take from me.
Something stronger than fists or fear.
Information. Power. Silence that listened to me for once.
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That’s when Nova Rae was born.
Not the broken girl with scars under her sleeve.
But the ghost who could follow the money, the threat, the lie—and make it all disappear.
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People look at me now, and they see the gloss, the glow-up, the girl with the clicks.
But they don’t know about the girl who had to hide her tears under fluorescent lights in shelters.
Who kept a blade under her tongue and code in her bones.
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I don’t want your pity.
Just remember—
Pretty doesn’t mean untouched.
And loud girls like me? We learned to scream because no one ever listened when we whispered.
I was twelve the first time I hacked someone.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU1O1YpQ6Go
Not for money. Not for clout.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy5cL8t1Swc
For survival.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1MNKOomOGT
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjs3Pv6wIRV
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Miss Laney—my third foster mama in two months—had sticky fingers and a nastier attitude.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOcKKH8xQVM
Kept her fridge locked, her mouth mean, and her eyes on my clothes like they were her property.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyqI3bO7jeM
She’d smile in front of the caseworker and say I was “adjusting just fine.”25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRmuN4jl5sk
But the minute that door closed, I was back to being her little maid with a mattress on the floor and bruises she said I earned.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV1PxO9BjQt
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I’d had enough.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLC4XpAY7dq
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She had this dusty old Dell laptop she guarded like gold.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3wl0n1JCNv
She’d always log into her food stamp portal in front of me—bragging about how much she’d get “just for feeding little street rats.”25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx6F9yIL393
Except she never fed us. The cabinets stayed empty.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡumdC2kx0ev
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One night, while she was snoring off boxed wine and bitterness, I snuck into the kitchen.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡly9RP6B7h5
Took her laptop. Sat on the floor with a flashlight between my knees.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡImLUd6Qrnj
Heart pounding. Hands shaking.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe4swi033tr
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She used the same password for everything—Laney1234.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0Nud4xjgZT
Too easy.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr5Pkdn5jR8
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I clicked into her account, found her full name, her case info, and her EBT card ID.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsSL6KScbVr
Felt like God when I figured out how to reroute that whole deposit.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF07U5qoLeh
Transferred every dollar to a new account linked to a prepaid card I’d watched a kid at the shelter set up earlier that week.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ewhN2D9BP
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I didn’t stop there.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhbrD0cjDX9
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I forwarded her entire search history—every sketchy ad she posted, every complaint the other kids had written about her but never submitted—to her case manager’s inbox.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtupNIMJCyW
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Then I put the laptop back.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQiPWm3vi2P
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The next morning, she cursed the devil into the floorboards trying to figure out why her card declined.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgW8jvTlpEt
By that afternoon, a social worker was knocking at the door.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPE2VxT81O6
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I didn’t smile when they pulled me out of that house.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyoJEfZ3xfm
But inside?25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNbBUUWX3wq
I was lit up like a sunrise.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuyPohJM2MH
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That was the day I realized something.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9d65uc6Sng
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I didn’t need to fight with fists.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKEZiTR1HyF
I had keystrokes.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxKtfENC5rS
And people like Miss Laney?25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc19s0T2qLe
They had no idea what a girl like me could do once she learned the system.
