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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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBl7CMDLJqA
Not for money. Not for clout.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkP8Hvk3rRz
For survival.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUC9X96Abkx
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Miss Laney—my third foster mama in two months—had sticky fingers and a nastier attitude.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXV8YqSOCpr
Kept her fridge locked, her mouth mean, and her eyes on my clothes like they were her property.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMBuZi75cAz
She’d smile in front of the caseworker and say I was “adjusting just fine.”22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcglclGe9ps
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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRVUmDPd8a3
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I’d had enough.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPvZrFMIvCQ
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She had this dusty old Dell laptop she guarded like gold.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdRIhv2Pn8y
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.”22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoU0kFIPmyR
Except she never fed us. The cabinets stayed empty.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzhzszQVFkz
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One night, while she was snoring off boxed wine and bitterness, I snuck into the kitchen.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3OuL3bEhN4
Took her laptop. Sat on the floor with a flashlight between my knees.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsFeWFXbK9V
Heart pounding. Hands shaking.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7UkDUEnB6p
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She used the same password for everything—Laney1234.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoEnaGtxWa6
Too easy.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3LdbhqEBHa
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I clicked into her account, found her full name, her case info, and her EBT card ID.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtSUPaD2rWP
Felt like God when I figured out how to reroute that whole deposit.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0vbSlKdaOu
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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6sGAua7pml
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I didn’t stop there.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTwqgt0GOad
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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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6jVYbR7QEa
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Then I put the laptop back.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2MyhdQkF9A
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The next morning, she cursed the devil into the floorboards trying to figure out why her card declined.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFjE2XbrVYI
By that afternoon, a social worker was knocking at the door.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOrqwceDV2C
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I didn’t smile when they pulled me out of that house.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXt9kOWeAXA
But inside?22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRBxzN6JmCQ
I was lit up like a sunrise.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfgUMNJNm1f
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That was the day I realized something.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzlhPDpLlH0
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I didn’t need to fight with fists.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡanBpGWuuM1
I had keystrokes.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLRm9hY6Fie
And people like Miss Laney?22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ41rPW3CQQp
They had no idea what a girl like me could do once she learned the system.
