Page 5 of Wild Ride

She isn’t called Exorcist for no reason. This bitch gives head like a goddamn demon, and right now, I need her to make me forget how fucking depressing this shit is. This whole day has been.

Booze and pussy.

That’s what Shade always said made shit better, and I know he’s right because my night is about to be fucking phenomenal.

“Yeah, I’m comin’… or I will be soon,” I say with a smirk.

She laughs, the sound reaching my ears before she holds out her hand for me. “I can help with that.”

And she does.

More than once before the night is through.

And yet, I still feel empty.

Hollow.

Alone.

CHAPTER TWO

DAKOTA

ONE MONTH LATER

Briana’s eyes widen as she stares at me. I don’t know what she thought was going to happen. Maybe she thought I would change my mind or something, but I can’t. This letter from my father’s attorney is a stark difference from what my mother claimed he was, which was a monster.

But what do I know? He could have been. But if I don’t know, I will never find out, and I need answers. I’m an orphan who never even knew her father’s name until I found my birth certificate by accident.

And my mother, who is also gone, I wouldn’t classify our relationship as close. Sure, I loved her, but at the same time, I didn’t know much about her. She told me her parents died young, but otherwise, nothing in her life mattered until she found the Haven.

That included me, I felt. And I felt that deeply, even at the age of twelve, when she said the words. My mother lived the life she wanted in the commune. Sexual partners were interchangeable for all people.

The workload was heavy during the day, but the nights were for drinking, smoking pot, and love.

“You’re such a drag, Dakota. I don’t understand how I, of all people, could have a daughter who doesn’t want to experience all the delicious fruits life has to offer.”

My mother said this to me when I was sixteen years old and didn’t want to sleep with a man whom I had grown up calling Uncle Freely.

Uncle Freely was forty years old and creepy as hell. Even if I wanted to tastethe delicious fruits that life had to offer, it wasn’t going to be anything that he had to offer… ever. So, while I loved my mother, I didn’t know her.

We weren’t friends.

And she never was like the mothers I saw on television or in movies, which was something that I didn’t discover until later. Because in the commune, we didn’t watch television or movies. In fact, we didn’t even have electricity after seven in the evening.

Once dinner was made and cleaned up, everything was turned off. Maybe that’s why all the adults drank, smoked, and had sex every single night—they were bored. Because television is amazing. Briana has introduced me to streaming, which I am a huge fan of.

I can watch whatever I want, the way I want.

It’s amazing.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? It’s a long drive all by yourself,” Briana asks, taking me out of my thoughts on the convenience of streaming.

Sliding my tongue across my bottom lip, I shake my head. “I can’t ask you to take any more time off work for me. I can work from anywhere.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and tilts her head to the side as she dips her chin slightly and looks down her nose at me. “I don’t care about work, Dakota. I care about you. And you don’t know how the world works, not really. I’m scared something is going to happen to you. This isn’t Willamette Haven.”

She is not wrong. I don’t know the ways of the world. I’ve been staying fairly isolated in her place, and she knows it. I can see the worry in her eyes, but I also know that I need to do this for me. I need to. I need to prove to myself that I can do this.

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