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.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDq6hxUaDCm
Not for money. Not for clout.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv0YYw1okKh
For survival.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6aGkqdCgGl
30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm60czwCVaS
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Miss Laney—my third foster mama in two months—had sticky fingers and a nastier attitude.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡchAzkoLOup
Kept her fridge locked, her mouth mean, and her eyes on my clothes like they were her property.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx6WdU6F8ym
She’d smile in front of the caseworker and say I was “adjusting just fine.”30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1ZagMO14th
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.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBEhTSghjAs
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I’d had enough.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ4WwcEYsc8
30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWqEbrmIWUe
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She had this dusty old Dell laptop she guarded like gold.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkTbSo6ewiF
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.”30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcmSyh3zUeD
Except she never fed us. The cabinets stayed empty.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡABWucckCfb
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One night, while she was snoring off boxed wine and bitterness, I snuck into the kitchen.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ378bTNsDwa
Took her laptop. Sat on the floor with a flashlight between my knees.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKrg5k7PHNG
Heart pounding. Hands shaking.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9MlHqo40pV
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She used the same password for everything—Laney1234.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ09t1fCcxMc
Too easy.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8UYnxOTZft
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I clicked into her account, found her full name, her case info, and her EBT card ID.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXGnBDCgaQm
Felt like God when I figured out how to reroute that whole deposit.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVtPs4erBCg
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.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDm69R4hJY8
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I didn’t stop there.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡySdOfY2qRC
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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.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoRlDc5S39t
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Then I put the laptop back.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc3vdbCl8vr
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The next morning, she cursed the devil into the floorboards trying to figure out why her card declined.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4C8BWPumB6
By that afternoon, a social worker was knocking at the door.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs1BMdE3ry1
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I didn’t smile when they pulled me out of that house.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsn1rVBooXt
But inside?30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ74XOwtDeb6
I was lit up like a sunrise.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIFkQ9Rmoxt
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That was the day I realized something.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMIoYU2Ev54
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I didn’t need to fight with fists.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi2w3ZPgKeg
I had keystrokes.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7l9Q648yZ9
And people like Miss Laney?30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLf8NrWASDn
They had no idea what a girl like me could do once she learned the system.
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