Girls from da Hood 14 Read online

  Girls From Da Hood 14

  Treasure Hernandez

  and Ms. Michel Moore

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  All the Way In

  Chapter One - Sonya, Book Bag Bandit

  Chapter Two - Melody, Money Mel

  Chapter Three - Two of a Kind

  Chapter Four - Sonya

  Chapter Five - Melody

  Chapter Six - Sonya

  Chapter Seven - Melody

  Chapter Eight - Sonya

  Chapter Nine - Mr. Brooks

  Chapter Ten - Sonya

  Chapter Eleven - Melody

  Chapter Twelve - Bags

  Chapter Thirteen - Melody

  Chapter Fourteen - Sonya

  Chapter Fifteen - Sonya

  Chapter Sixteen - Melody

  Chapter Seventeen - Sonya

  Chapter Eighteen - Mr. Brooks

  Chapter Nineteen - Melody

  Chapter Twenty - Mr. Brooks

  Chapter Twenty-one - Mr. Brooks

  Escaping a Thug’s Love

  Prologue - Once Upon My Life . . .

  Chapter One - Sable

  Chapter Two - Sable

  Chapter Three - Sable

  Chapter Four - Sable

  Chapter Five - Mike Mike

  Chapter Six - Sable

  Chapter Seven - Carla—Welcome to South Beach

  Chapter Eight - Sable

  Chapter Nine - Sable

  Chapter Ten - Carla

  Chapter Eleven - Sable

  Chapter Twelve - Sable

  Chapter Thirteen - Roxy

  Chapter Fourteen - Mike Mike

  Chapter Fifteen - Carla

  Chapter Sixteen - Sable

  Chapter Seventeen - Carla

  Chapter Eighteen - Roxy

  Chapter Nineteen - Carla

  Chapter Twenty - Sable

  Chapter Twenty-one - Sable

  Chapter Twenty-two - Gianna

  Chapter Twenty-three - Sable

  Chapter Twenty-four - Roxy

  Chapter Twenty-five - Jazz

  Chapter Twenty-six - Sable

  Chapter Twenty-seven - Sable

  Chapter Twenty-eight - Gianna

  Chapter Twenty-nine - A Few Months Later . . .

  Urban Books, LLC

  300 Farmingdale Road,NY-Route 109

  Farmingdale, NY 11735

  All the Way In

  Copyright © 2020 Treasure Hernandez

  Escaping a Thug’s Love

  Copyright © 2020 Ms. Michel Moore

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

  eISBN 13: 978-1-64556-118-7

  eISBN 10: 1-64556-118-6

  ISBN: 978-1-6455-6117-0

  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.

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  All the Way In

  Treasure Hernandez

  Chapter One

  Sonya, Book Bag Bandit

  I hated the people God chose to make my family. I hated even claiming them as my family because not one of them was successful. Every last one of them was stranded on a welfare check doing dirt ball bad—and here I was born dead smack into absolutely nothing. I hated my aunt’s house and everything in it because, to me, it represented failure and everything I didn’t want to be. The empty wrappers, liquor bottles, and full ashtrays of smoked cigarettes reminded me every day of the life I didn’t want. The only reason I even bothered to come here—I call it “here” because I refuse to call it home—was on the strength of my little brother Devin. If it weren’t for him, I would have stopped putting up with my aunt’s hellhole long ago. Every night, I would lie with Devin on our pallet of sheets and old blankets, which we spread across the floor. I would lie there staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out a way I could come up with enough money to move my little brother out of that dump and into a place that was at least clean. That was all I cared about . . . not clothes, shoes, or even sleep. I had to get us out of there by any means necessary.

  * * *

  I would kiss Devin on the forehead while he slept. I’d look at his little innocent face for a minute, trying to find the inspiration I needed before I hit them streets and, hopefully, turn up something.

  Cuzzo and my aunt were the only two that beat me to the kitchen every morning. As soon as I hit the door, there she sat, legs crossed, in her favorite weathered blue nightgown, sipping coffee while pretending to be knee-deep in God’s Word. I swear if there were a back door or any other way out of that house other than going through the kitchen, I damn sure would have utilized it. The only way out was through the area where she diligently sat perched. It was almost like she was waiting to start messing with me.

  I would take a deep breath and prepare for the bullshit. “Mornin’, Auntie,” I would say, heading for the kitchen sink to wash my hands. Even though her place was a mess, Lord knows you better wash your hands before touching anything in her kitchen. Then I would fix myself a simple bowl of grits, and nothing more because I hated eating her food. Auntie was one to make sure she let you know it too . . . that you were eating her food and living in her house. Her “four walls” are what she called it.

  The reason I hated eating her food was that she always held some type of opposition. You were eating too much, or she was complaining that you thought you were too good for her cooking. I kept it simple so that I could keep it moving. She never would acknowledge my morning greetings. Instead, she would give me an evil understare as she sipped her coffee. I’d be sitting across from her, thinking, Here we go. And sure as shit, she would start.

  “When are you going to get yourself together, Sonya? This is supposed to be your senior year, and I’m sure you won’t be walking across the stage in June.”

  “Auntie, I wish you would stop with all the graduation talk. School ain’t never been for me.” I was trying to hurry up and finish my grits so I could get the hell out of there.

  “Well, I’ma tell you one thing. When school lets out, if you don’t have a job, you won’t have a roof over your head neither. Are we clear on that part?”

  Her fat ass irked me. I scooted my wooden chair back from the small table and stood up. I wasn’t trying to hear her gibberish, not this morning. Besides, even if I were to graduate, there wasn’t a single cent set aside for me to go off to college, so what was the difference? The way I looked at it was I couldn’t do any worse than the rest of them.

  As I washed my bowl, Auntie spat, “I’m not taking care of no grown-ass woman.” That’s funny because she didn’t even hold a job. She was making it off them checks the government sent her wide ass twice a month for my brother and me, not to mention her own flock.

  “There goes my baby,” Auntie proudly announced, as her eldest son entered the kitchen running late. Cuzzo was younger by a couple of months.

  Hugging and kissing his mother before taking a seat across from her, he smiled. “Mornin’, Ma.”

  Auntie scrambled to her feet in a rush to get to the stove. She packed his plate full of bacon, eggs, and french t
oast. She set the plate down in front of him, then rushed over to her bedroom, where she kept the good cereal under lock and key. “Here you go, baby,” she said, setting the Frosted Flakes in front of her favorite child.

  “I’m out,” I said over my shoulder as I made my way through the kitchen, strapping my book bag to my back.

  “Wait up, girl. I’ma walk with you,” Cuzzo insisted. He took a long gulp of milk while trying to stand.

  But Auntie forced him back down into his chair. “Finish your food, baby,” she ordered while rolling her eyes at me.

  “Yeah, Cuzzo, I’ll see you later. Finish eating.” I kept moving to the front door. Deep down, I knew Auntie didn’t care for me. I didn’t know if it was because I was gay or something else. Nevertheless, she felt like I was going nowhere fast, and she was determined not to let me take Cuzzo with me. Which was good, considering I always had things to take care of that were a one-man job.

  I slammed the front door and took in a deep breath of fresh air, relieved to be leaving that house. Quickly, I tucked my hands deep inside the pockets of my black hooded coat and started down the block. We lived on West Grand, one block away from Davison. Every morning, I would leave the house with my book bag strapped to my back, but instead of going to school, I was on my way to pull yet another caper. It was easy enough, and it was just the way I liked my money—fast. Most people would try to tell me that what I was doing was wrong, but you know what? Fuck you and fuck them too ’cause I don’t believe in right and wrong. Nah, I believe in what’s necessary and what’s not. And me trying to change my little brother’s living situation was extremely necessary.

  * * *

  Nearing the BP gas station, I locked eyes on the well-dressed, half-breed dude standing at the rear area of a pearl-white Lincoln. He was watching the meter on the pump with his back to me . . . straight slipping. I had to get him. I picked up my step and pulled my hood over my head. I quickly checked the scene. Approximately three inches of fresh snow packed the street, so the traffic moving down Davison was at a minimum and at a snail’s pace. I crossed the parking lot while clutching the handle of my gun. The meter slowed, then stopped at twenty dollars.

  The man shook the last of the gas from the pump and placed it back on its hook. When he turned around to screw the cap on his gas tank, his nose touched the cold steel of the barrel of my gun. I could see the fear in his eyes. It was like I was looking at his soul. He slowly raised his hands above his head, while back stepping into the pump. “Please, don’t shoot me,” he begged for mercy.

  “Shut the fuck up and walk your ass around the back of the station,” I ordered through clenched teeth. I looked around my surroundings to make sure no one was watching us. “Move, nigga,” I snapped, waving the gun toward the alley.

  “Okay, okay.” The man started sidestepping for the alley while keeping his hands high and eyes married to the gun.

  Once we reached the alley, I ordered him against the wall while I slid out of my book bag. “Here, put everything in the bag,” I demanded, tossing the bag to his chest. The man hurriedly removed everything from his pockets, stuffing his belongings inside the bag.

  “Everything—clothes, drawers, socks. The whole nine. I want it all and hurry the fuck up.”

  “It’s too cold. Let me keep my clothes at least. You can have everything else.”

  “Strip.” I held his ass at bay while he stripped down. Within seconds, he was standing there ass naked, ashy, and shivering. Pneumonia would definitely be in his future.

  “Hold up, playboy. Put the ring in the bag too,” I ordered with an attitude.

  “Come on, not my wedding band,” he pleaded. “My wife will kill me.”

  “Bitch, you can die with it on for all I care. Either way, I guess you gonna be dead, so what’s it gonna be? By my hand or hers?” I snapped, then cocked the hammer back to let him know I wasn’t bullshitting.

  He lowered his hands to his side and started fiddling with the back of the ring like he was trying to get it off, then out of nowhere, the naked fool broke down into a Barry Sanders stance and hit me with the two-move juke. I started to bang his old ass in his back as he booked down the alley with his feet touching his ass, but I let him go on about his way. That ring definitely wasn’t worth catching no body.

  I grabbed my book bag from the snow and put it on my back. With a quickness, I cut down the alley in the opposite direction. Even with the three inches of snow, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the hook had the entire hood on fire. Once the call went through with my description, every cop in the vicinity would be looking for me. I done robbed so many people at BP, it was crazy ’cause I’d lost count. Every time I made they ass strip naked and put it all in the bag. So many people had the same complaint that the 10th Precinct had dubbed me, “The Book Bag Bandit.”

  I ain’t give a fuck, though, ’cause they all described me as a six-foot, muscle-bound, triple-dark-skinned dude with a deep voice. Of course, I don’t look anything close to that description, but I guess fear makes a person see what they want to see. I’m a brown-skinned female with short dreads and a whisper-light voice. But I’ll take the name “Book Bag Bandit.” At the end of the day, it sounded kind of cool.

  I knew my hood like the back of my hand, so shaking the hook was easy. I cut back across Davison, ran past my block, and turned down Pasadena. Then to make sure the cops wouldn’t be on my trail after a few houses, I darted between the vacant lots. Thankfully, I was in good shape and not out of breath. I couldn’t say that about the first time I robbed someone in the alley. When I ran off, I got winded so fast I thought I was definitely going to get caught. But now that I’ve done robbed so many, I got my stamina at one hundred.

  My slim build was righteous for sprinting, even in the snow. Taking one final look to ensure I wasn’t being followed, I climbed the porch of the two-family flat. It didn’t matter what time, day or night. Each step served as the doorbell, that’s how loud they creaked. Like clockwork, by the time I reached the landing, the door would be wide open. No doubt, today would be no exception. Pops stood in the doorway, scratching at his ashy stomach with one hand and vigorously rubbing his beady head with the other. He looked over my shoulder and then up the street. “Why ain’t yo’ ass in school, girl?” he asked, slurring and spitting every word.

  “The same reason you ain’t got your teeth in,” I said, brushing past him on my way through the door.

  Pops locked the front door using two cross boards, then tailed me into the back room. I could hear his feet scraping behind me. His feet looked like gator boots, that’s how badly cracked they were at the heels.

  “You don’t think I know what you’ve been doing out there, do you?” he asked, trying to be funny. I tried to shut the bedroom door, but Pops caught it with his big toe. “I know good and well what you up to, Sonya.” He slowly dragged his sentence out.

  “So, and what? What’s your damn point of what you think you know? What you gonna do—turn me in or something?” I didn’t give a fuck about his old ass somewhat knowing the score. What was he going to do? Snitch? Naw, he knew that would be bad for his health, especially in the neighborhood where we lived.

  “Come on now. Stop all of that bullshit. You know I would never turn my own daughter in, not for nothing in the world. So—”

  Yeah, right. For a good shot of dope, you’d turn God in. “All right, so what you want?” I snapped, tired of his games.

  Pops pushed up his Coke-bottle Mafia glasses on his nose and squinted with greed. “You know what I need. Give your old man some of that money I know you got . . . just something to get me out the gate. You know, a li’l kick start for the day.”

  “What the fuck. Damn. All right, give me a minute.” I didn’t need him sweating my every move because his idea of a “li’l something” would turn into a lot more than what I was trying to give up. Pops released his doorstopper big toe and yelled as I closed the door. “And I don’t want no scraps! Look out for me!”

&n
bsp; I took off my coat and tossed it over on the cluttered love seat. As always, I then propped the back of a chair under the doorknob. I cut on the ancient floor-model TV and flopped down beside my book bag, where I searched every inch of my latest victim’s belongings, and all I turned up was sixty-two dollars in cash and an old-ass check stub. I couldn’t believe that shit—all that for this. I should have blasted his bitch ass and at least got that ring off him. This lick was a waste of time. I’d been better off just going to school for the free breakfast they’d serve if you got there early enough.

  Never again. Next go-around, I’ma pick me somebody that at least looks like they got bread. I fired up a Newport and kicked back, watching the morning news.

  “Sonya, hey, Sonya,” Pops desperately called out, harassing me about what was mines, what I’d taken the risk of getting arrested or killed over. When I didn’t reply quickly enough, he jerked the knob violently, trying to get in. Finally, the door cracked some but stopped when the chair’s legs dug into the floor doing their job. That made him even more frustrated as he passed the baton to my mother.

  “Open up this fucking door, girl. I ain’t playing with you this morning.”

  I hated the sound of her voice. It was my crackhead-ass mother, Mom Dukes, riding shotgun with Pops for a come-up. She and I had a love-hate type relationship. I loved my mother on the strength that she had given me birth, and because she hadn’t always been like she was now. We had some good memories, but they were so long ago that I barely remembered them. For the past twelve years, it’s been nothing but her smoking crack and nursing a bottle of gin. Truth be told, that’s the reason my little brother Devin is slow, ’cause my mom refused to stop hitting the pipe while she was pregnant. And for that selfish reason, I hated her inner soul. Knowing my two, rotten, drug-addicted parents would take the door off the hinges to get to some cash to get high, I stuffed the money I had deep in my pocket. Then I scanned the room before opening the door.