Girls from da Hood 13 Read online

  Girls From Da Hood 13

  Ms. Michel Moore,

  Treasure Hernandez, and Katt

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Get It, Get It!

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  You Can’t Break Us

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  So Far Gone

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Urban Books, LLC

  300 Farmingdale Road, NY-Route 109

  Farmingdale, NY 11735

  Get It, Get It! Copyright © 2018 Ms. Michel Moore

  You Can’t Break Us Copyright © 2018 Treasure Hernandez

  So Far Gone Copyright © 2018 Katt

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-6228-6695-3

  ISBN-10: 1-62286-695-9

  eISBN-13: 978-1-6228-6699-1

  eISBN-10: 1-62286-699-1

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Submit orders to:

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  Get It, Get It!

  by

  Ms. Michel Moore

  Chapter One

  Once a dopefiend, always a dopefiend! Recovery my ass! I’m so tired of this bullshit!

  “Mama, please! Mama, please wake up! Why you keep doing this stupid stuff all the time?” Monica was distraught. Confused by reality, her mind raced. Screaming at the top of her young lungs, the young teen violently grabbed her mother’s frail, sunken face. She slapped it repeatedly in an attempt to get her bloodshot eyes to reopen and once again take in life. Monica exhaled. She worked steadily as would a seasoned, trained surgeon.

  Like clockwork, she then jumped to her feet. Running to get a cold washcloth, the teen knew time was essential. With water dripping from the drenched dirty rag she grabbed off the bathroom floor, she pushed through the growing crowd of nosy neighbors. She placed the cloth on her mother’s sweating forehead. Immediately it caused her small frame to slightly jerk from the shock of the sudden temperature change.

  “You won’t be happy until your ass fucking die and leave us all alone,” Monica angrily shouted, while pounding down on Jenette Howard’s chest.

  Everyone packed inside the tiny apartment, which was done in ghetto decor. Each stood motionless, waiting for this week’s near-tragic outcome. Even though Jenette was no more than a bona fide run-of-the-mill drug addict, normally Monica never would’ve cursed at her mom, let alone raised her voice. However, this was a special occasion. Today was one of those all-too-famous “first of the month” kinda special occasions. It was one that everyone in the hood waited and prayed for. Jenette had gotten her food stamps at nine o’clock that morning. And instead of stocking the cabinets with even a few cans of soup, let alone a tiny loaf of bread, she copped her usual choice of nourishment: dope.

  Never once thinking about anything else but self, less than two hours later it was what it was. She was surrounded by all three of her innocent, hungry children. Jenette was laid the fuck out on the living room floor, damn near overdosing. She was seconds away from meeting her Maker. Tragically, if given the chance to cop another pack of the same shit that had her knocking at death’s door, she’d ask for double her money’s worth.

  Same shit, different day, Monica thought, frustrated, as she went through the regular routine of bringing her mother out of her drug-induced trance. I swear to God she’s really testing me! How long she gonna do this dumb shit?

  With each passing episode of her mother’s over-the-top antics, the scary temptation was growing greater daily for Monica not to come to her mother’s constant aid. Monica was fighting with her conscience about calling protective services her damn self. The only thing stopping her was the risk of being separated from her little brother and sister in the system. The teen knew the callous system cared even less about keeping family together than Jenette did.

  It would be different if this weren’t the norm, but unfortunately, it was. Jenette was famous for overdoing it like it was in her DNA. Whether it was a fifth of five o’clock gin and she was drunk, passed out cold, or her showcase specialty: the needle left dangling half in her arm after a good, strong hit. The single mother of three was good for bugging out, spazzing into full-blown convulsions. Poor Monica didn’t know which she hated to witness more: her mother with too many drugs in her system, or the days when Jenette was bold, craving a blast, throwing up, scratching her skin ’til it bled, sick, with the eerie, dead glare of a zombie in her eyes.

  Under both circumstances, Monica was left to play nursemaid to her mother, who was once halfway decent. Jenette’s hopeless search for love and acceptance led her to depend on anything she could get her hands on to try to escape the grim certainty of her life. Her indulging in every drug, drink, random sex partner, and reckless behavior known to man had torn her family apart. And the saddest part of the god-awful, gut-wrenching story was that Jenette was lost in her own world and couldn’t care less.

  Monica was the oldest of the three of Jenette’s children. She was extremely small for her age, standing barely four feet seven inches tall. Her skin was dark brown and her hair, which matched her eyes, was light brown. Monica was a few months short of turning fifteen but had the knowledge of someone twice her age. She had no choice but to grow up quickly, especially being cursed with a mother like Jenette.

  Like most of the other illegitimate children in the economically stressed Detroit neighborhood, Monica’s mother was a 100-percent alcoholic crossed with an addicted junkie and proud
of it. She had no shame whatsoever. Day or night, Jenette could be found jumping in and out of cars, trying to get money by hook or by crook. If it was a blowjob, no matter if the trick was five or fifty-five, Jenette was on call, no questions asked. That creepy, foul bullshit sadly left Monica to be both mother and father to her little sister and brother.

  Of course, all three children had different sperm donors. They never came around or really gave a shit about their kid’s well-being. Considering Jenette’s known slutty ways, each questioned if they were even really the father. Jenette, always depressed, seemed to take their absence out on her children. Getting cursed at, spit at, and all-out ignored was the norm in their household.

  Life in Monica’s small corner of the world was based on a lot of chaos. With all the different tricks Jenette would have parading in and out of their small one-bedroom apartment to support her habit, Monica was fed up. The teen didn’t know how much more she could take. She was at her wits’ end. Instead of going to the movies, hanging out at the mall with friends, or even trying to do her homework assignments, only one thing would fill Monica’s long days: scheming to put food on the table and clothes on Dennis’s and Kayla’s backs.

  Monica couldn’t help but think back to the first time her mother taught her to “borrow stuff” from the store. Always on the come up, Jenette had her daughter stuffing packs of expensive steaks and family-size pork chops down the back of her pants at an early age. When Jenette would be too sick to get out of bed or off the floor, curled up in a ball throwing up in her mouth, she’d have Monica going to the dope house to cop for her. In the worst-case scenario, sometimes Monica would reluctantly have to cook the drugs up. And more traumatically than that, she’d sometimes shoot it into her mother’s thirsty veins. That was if she could find one that wasn’t tapped out.

  Monica was only eight years old at the time Jenette’s addiction began, but her youth and innocence never once mattered to her mother. That was life in the hood and Monica had to get used to it if she wanted to survive. After all, she and her siblings weren’t the only kids who lived like that in their part of the city. It was a “get in where you fit in” situation. Nothing more than Jenette’s live-in babysitter and from time to time her hustle partner, Monica was often hungry. She was left in the house to watch her premature baby brother for days, sometimes weeks at a time. When her unfit, drunken mother, unfortunately, got pregnant again, Monica got on her knees nightly. With eyes closed tightly, she hoped and prayed to God that all of that running the streets and getting high her mom was doing would cease.

  Jenette, on the other hand, had a much different game plan and agenda. True to the game of chasing that ultimate high, pregnant or not, she wouldn’t hear of missing a day of clowning in the streets. Monica’s heartfelt wishes meant nothing to her mother. No sooner than Jenette gave birth, she was out the door back on the hunt. Now she was leaving Monica with two kids instead of one. It was nothing short of a small miracle the hospital even released the baby into Jenette’s care. Unfortunately for Monica, they did. The teen was still just a child herself, a baby raising babies as the saying goes.

  Chapter Two

  “All right, Dennis, I’m not playing. Y’all need to get up before you’re late.” Monica roughly shook his arm to show him she meant business.

  It was six forty-five in the morning, and Monica was busy trying to get Dennis and Kayla out of bed. This was their everyday early morning routine. The school they attended served free, piping hot breakfast at 7:30 a.m. sharp. Monica wanted her brother and sister to make sure to eat a balanced meal before they started class. Even though most days she missed eating a healthy breakfast herself, her siblings were her top priority in life, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

  After the kids were up, Monica lifted the thin, filth-stained mattress from the full-sized bed all three of them shared, and she removed Dennis’s and Kayla’s blue jeans. She always remembered to place them there the night before so they could have somewhat of a crease in them. Unfortunately, since Jenette would sell every iron that Monica would bring in the house, or anything else for that matter that had a plug on it, keeping their clothes neat was a constant struggle.

  Monica, a survivor, had been forced to adapt to a few more “broke as shit” conditions, and she hated every minute of doing so. It consisted of a vast range of everything, from putting milk on the windowsills in the winter months to begging the old fart who owned the corner store for credit until the first of the month came around. It was that type of daily demeaning action that caused Monica to ultimately make the decision to step up her game.

  Going in the stores month after month begging was trifling and beneath her. The teen was getting older, and her developing body was starting to attract the Arab store owners’ attention in more ways than one. Her new outward appearance caused them to expect and demand way more in exchange for small favors than a virgin Monica was willing to give up. Dennis and Kayla were also growing each day and needed a lot more things than ever before. They each wanted to wear clothes that were just as nice as what the other kids at school wore. Monica hated to let them down. The youthful surrogate mother had to make some shit happen fast for her family before things started to spiral out of control even more. And, as luck would have it, it didn’t take long.

  * * *

  Monica was sitting on the front steps when Dennis and Kayla got home from school that day. They had barely rounded the corner when Monica saw something was wrong.

  “What happened to you, Dennis? Who put their fucking hands on you?” Monica was heated as she practically leaped off the stairs running toward her little brother. She was overly protective of her siblings. Instantly pissed seeing that Dennis’s shirt was torn and his lip was bleeding, Monica demanded answers.

  “Jeff and ’em was talking ’bout me and Kayla. They said we be wearing the same stuff to school all the time.” Dennis had tears forming in his eyes as he told the story, but he was much too proud to let them drop. “I told them so what and we all started arguing. Then they jumped on me.” Dennis bravely stood tall. “I wasn’t scared of none of them.”

  “Where the fuck they asses at? Let them jump on me and shit.” Monica started dusting the dirt out of her brother’s hair. “I’m tired of them little motherfuckers. They clothes ain’t all of that. Y’all shit be clean, with a crease.”

  Kayla was standing on the sidewalk, crying and wiping her nose with her sleeve. Her face was beet red, and her eyes were full of pain. Wanting her older sister to know it all, Kayla marched over and yanked down on her brother’s arm. You could tell she was aggravated with every tug.

  “Dennis, tell Monica what else they said. Tell her what they said about Mama,” she whined, looking at him and shaking her head.

  Dennis stared at the ground, not wanting to look up at his older sister and make direct eye contact. He started slowly wasting time by kicking at the broken concrete curb, hoping and praying that Monica would stop the miniature interrogation she insisted on going through. However, it didn’t work. Monica was growing angrier as the seconds passed and she waited to hear the entire story.

  “Dennis, you better stop playing with me and tell me what all the fuck happened before I jump on your ass. Now, what was it that they said?” Monica folded her arms across her chest as she shifted all her weight to one hip. “I’m waiting!”

  Dennis took a deep breath, hesitated a few seconds more, then let it out. “They said that mama was nothing but a ho. And then they said she was in the alley by the park, sucking an old man’s dick. Now you happy?” The brave boy unfortunately lost his battle with his pride as tears started to pour from his eyes. “Fuck Mama’s dopefiend ass. I hate her. I wish she was dead,” he yelled while running up the stairs. He disappeared into the slimy-ass apartment building they were forced to call home.

  Hearing those cruel words come out of Dennis’s mouth caused both of his sisters to also cry.

  Fuck living like this! Monica thought. Shit gotta get better!
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  Reaching out, she took Kayla’s tiny hand as both girls slowly walked up the stairs. Monica looked down at her little sister and felt an almost unbearable sharp pain in the pit of her stomach. She was the oldest, and their survival was on her. Jenette and her despicable behavior was completely inexcusable, and Monica had to take charge.

  “Don’t worry, Kayla. Dennis will be all right.” They entered the building. “We all will, I promise. I’m gonna fix it.”

  Chapter Three

  Two years had passed since the day Dennis had wished their mother would drop dead. Sadly, as life would go, nothing much had changed. Jenette was still a poor excuse for a mother, or even a human being for that matter. Confusion still daily filled Monica’s world. Thankfully Kayla was doing well in school. Monica, still the sole provider of their dysfunctional family, rewarded her younger sibling every chance she got with brand new dresses and lots of books Kayla yearned for.

  But Dennis was a horse of a different color and flat-out on the nut. He was straight-up out of order. A certified little thug in training, he was hanging out until all times of the night, skipping school, and constantly fighting. Dennis stayed in some shit. Even though Monica would go out and steal him the hottest gear that was popping, it didn’t seem to matter at all to Dennis. He was determined to go against the grain of any rules that his big sister tried to set for him.

  “Damn, boy. What’s your problem? I try to keep your bad ass fresh as can be. You got brand new Tims in every color. You own every throwback I can get my hands on, and I give you something to keep in your pockets on the regular.” Monica was pacing the room as she preached to her hardheaded younger brother. “What else do you want? Do you want the social worker coming back around here again? Would that make you happy?”

  Dennis couldn’t deny that his big sis kept him tight. That wasn’t really his problem. Truth be told, he was still pissed about having been cursed with a junkie for a mother. Rubbing his hands together, he nodded. “Naw, Monica, I don’t want that bitch to be bringing her nosy ass over here, but dang.”