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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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr6bpHFoy2w
Not for money. Not for clout.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhjjT5FgVW5
For survival.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEr8uPAuD7M
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Miss Laney—my third foster mama in two months—had sticky fingers and a nastier attitude.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDaOv4wtDzF
Kept her fridge locked, her mouth mean, and her eyes on my clothes like they were her property.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZS7JLseclX
She’d smile in front of the caseworker and say I was “adjusting just fine.”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAgqA0T17At
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ73ysqwwVVR
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I’d had enough.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfLL44W1XNf
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She had this dusty old Dell laptop she guarded like gold.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH7c9Ar6wsb
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.”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqWIEIicBFr
Except she never fed us. The cabinets stayed empty.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkqwPmlqoLG
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One night, while she was snoring off boxed wine and bitterness, I snuck into the kitchen.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy7bUPUItLo
Took her laptop. Sat on the floor with a flashlight between my knees.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzVufvA8Vsf
Heart pounding. Hands shaking.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOmVOad0VxQ
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She used the same password for everything—Laney1234.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu6bwpmsVKc
Too easy.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb3OpEPlBcx
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I clicked into her account, found her full name, her case info, and her EBT card ID.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs1J52b3yRK
Felt like God when I figured out how to reroute that whole deposit.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5ZL3waJq9t
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCCrFr9eTpM
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I didn’t stop there.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDjZbXKsOeO
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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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTXAmWWX2Gf
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Then I put the laptop back.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWYjmwK1QlS
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The next morning, she cursed the devil into the floorboards trying to figure out why her card declined.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ48okWAUSqN
By that afternoon, a social worker was knocking at the door.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBzrDe6sQ7T
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I didn’t smile when they pulled me out of that house.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7YsoWm0zNG
But inside?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvImsrZIlK9
I was lit up like a sunrise.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDkO5EYbXuH
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That was the day I realized something.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzGNjLwJQEg
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I didn’t need to fight with fists.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuxdIqke53l
I had keystrokes.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ14ITle5ty9
And people like Miss Laney?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKzTWlnHb3X
They had no idea what a girl like me could do once she learned the system.
