Chapter 4

Over the next few days, I tried to run away from home.

But my driver’s license was missing, and my passport had been shredded and thrown into the trash.

I tried going to an internet cafe for help, but I discovered that Mom had somehow installed a virus on my phone.

The moment I reached the entrance of our gated community, two burly men in white coats blocked my path.

"Are you Rebecca? Your mother told us you've been emotionally unstable and have a history of self-harm. She asked us to come get you."

I backed away in terror. "That's not true! Who are you people?"

Mom stepped out from behind the two men with a document in her hand.

"Rebecca, stop making this harder than it has to be. I never wanted things to go this far."

She held the document up in front of me.

It was an application for a psychiatric evaluation, and it was filled with page after page describing my supposed symptoms.

[Sex addiction. Paranoia. Mania. Internet addiction.]

"I consulted the best psychiatrist I could find. This is Dr. Jameson. He specializes in treating ill-behaved girls like you."

Mom pointed to a middle-aged man standing beside her with a sinister smile.

"Hello, Rebecca." Harry Jameson adjusted his glasses.

"Based on the chat logs and behavioral deions your mother provided, you do appear to have severe cognitive disorders. We need to take you to our facility for residential treatment."

The so-called facility was nothing more than an upgraded version of those infamous illegal internet-addiction boot camps.

Once someone went in, they'd be lucky to come out in one piece.

"I'm not going with you! This is illegal!" I turned around and tried to run.

The two men easily grabbed my arms and dragged me toward a van.

Neighbors passing through the complex pointed in our direction and whispered among themselves.

"Isn't that the house of that famous mom?"

"Oh my goodness! Did her daughter go crazy? Poor thing."

"I heard her private life was too messed up. She got sick, and now she's lost her mind too."

Not a single person came to help.

Everyone thought they were watching a mother save her wayward daughter.

"Mom! Please! I'm sorry! I really am!"

At the last moment before they shoved me into the van, I broke down sobbing and dropped to my knees on the floor of the vehicle. I desperately kneeled in front of Mom and slapped myself.

"I won't run away again! I'll listen to you! I'll give all my money to Esther! Please don't send me to a place like that!"

Mom stood next to the van and looked down at me.

"Will you really behave?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I swear! I really will!"

Mom fell silent for several seconds. She seemed to be weighing her options.

If she really sent me away, she'd lose a free source of livestream content and a convenient ATM machine.

"Fine." Mom waved her hand, signaling the men to let me go. "Since you acknowledged your mistakes, I'll give you one last chance. But if you try to run again, or if you dare hide any money from me–"

After we got home, Mom took my bedroom door off its hinges.

"From now on, you don't get to close your door. I want to be able to see what you're doing at all times."

She installed three cameras in my room to monitor my every move from every angle.

Esther swaggered into my room and opened my closet.

She started taking the designer coats I'd always thought were too precious to wear.

"Rebecca, since you're not going anywhere anymore, I'm borrowing these. Besides, with your reputation now, you'd just embarrass yourself if you wore them outside."

I stared blankly ahead.

As far as they were concerned, I'd been completely tamed.

Late that night, I lay in bed listening to Mom sleeping in the next room.

She thought taking off my door and installing cameras meant she could control everything I did, but she'd forgotten one thing.

Before Harry left, he'd asked to add me on Instagram so he could send me my treatment plan.

For a brief moment, my phone connected to his hotspot.

In that one minute, I installed a program that ran in the background on my phone.

It quickly intercepted an encrypted file being transmitted. The file was named 'Coach.'

If he was only an ordinary personal trainer, why would he need an encrypted communication channel of this level to transfer files?

Mom was an extremely cautious person. Who else in this house, besides me, did she need to protect herself from?

In other words, who was she hiding something from?

I rolled over and silently thought, 'Mom, you taught me the first rule of hacking. Never trust the security of a computer system.