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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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxtc7PXStM6
Not for money. Not for clout.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡacw2k3dTig
For survival.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZ3vYh892m
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Miss Laney—my third foster mama in two months—had sticky fingers and a nastier attitude.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX9JfGVeqiB
Kept her fridge locked, her mouth mean, and her eyes on my clothes like they were her property.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNJPdmt6jgM
She’d smile in front of the caseworker and say I was “adjusting just fine.”18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqRryVWKsdu
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr5faZf1NIq
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I’d had enough.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ2b12zKfuy
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She had this dusty old Dell laptop she guarded like gold.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEOUzQ7BRkU
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.”18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY7AVwKx3In
Except she never fed us. The cabinets stayed empty.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh8lOtzaNG1
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One night, while she was snoring off boxed wine and bitterness, I snuck into the kitchen.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOUgVRT3Jhc
Took her laptop. Sat on the floor with a flashlight between my knees.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaHRgNEVkgp
Heart pounding. Hands shaking.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEVR0a7blnB
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She used the same password for everything—Laney1234.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqBq8J5UFmE
Too easy.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNcURtaOBXo
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I clicked into her account, found her full name, her case info, and her EBT card ID.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfeo7OSnf4z
Felt like God when I figured out how to reroute that whole deposit.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBDZRsDIojf
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyEit90v7wx
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I didn’t stop there.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡksv9CkQNif
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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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFmOAbtLeb2
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Then I put the laptop back.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxEXkkuUygy
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The next morning, she cursed the devil into the floorboards trying to figure out why her card declined.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiLC99w7Pxc
By that afternoon, a social worker was knocking at the door.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYv1k2q4wC8
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I didn’t smile when they pulled me out of that house.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNbQvePJEUh
But inside?18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZWgCpCN1oX
I was lit up like a sunrise.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK5OO0McUSU
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That was the day I realized something.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡithyTkuhgQ
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I didn’t need to fight with fists.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡivNUTXLFlk
I had keystrokes.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTT16J4dl3q
And people like Miss Laney?18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ93vT7K3Vrr
They had no idea what a girl like me could do once she learned the system.
