Page 56 of Sunny Undone

So, I take a step back because I don’t want his damp hand on me. “It’s a public access thoroughfare, and there is some research I need to do about three minutes’ walk down there.”

“Not today, you don’t,” the other man says.

The other couple got away unscathed, and I realize I can too. But I wonder just how far I can push them. “Do you have a legal permit or some kind of authority to be blocking this path?”

The man to my left laughs at that. “Do we look like we need anything legal to back up what we do?”

I look down the path and tip my chin. “Then I’m heading down there.”

With a sense of purpose, I take two steps forward, and the man throws out his arm again, but this time, he grips my bicep. “And I said no.”

He drops his head so we are almost nose to nose. “Pretty girl like you should learn when to take a hint. You aren’t getting past us. Not today. And not for the foreseeable future.”

I pull out my phone, mad that they’re there, and even more mad at myself for registering that he called me a pretty girl. “Look, I can either go back down the path and call the sheriff, or you can just let me by.”

The man lets go of me. “Go call him. Tell him the Outlaws now control this access point. See what he does.”

They look at each other and then, start laughing again, as if everything is some kind of joke.

But it nudges me closer to tears as everything I’ve gone through recently starts to stack up. No one thing is unnavigable, but all of them piled on top of each other is starting to feel insurmountable. The men who ransacked my room and stole my notebooks. The donation to the college, as long as I stop my research. The fact I can’t get to my little corner of the Everglades that nobody gave a shit about, but now everybody seems to want a piece of.

And so, I start running in an attempt to get past him.

At least, I feel like I do…for about four steps before I am grabbed around the chest, laptop bag and research equipment and all.

I’m about to scream, when a voice cuts clear above them all.

“Put her down before I kill you.”

Sunny!

17

SUNNY

One look at the fear on Della’s face, and I realize that, in spite of Knox’s advice, I’ve already fucked this up.

And I’m on the brink of fucking it up twice, because as my soul settles back in my body after the sight of Tank with his arms wrapped around Della, I realize I have my gun out and targeted at his head.

Tank, realizing the severity of the situation, drops Della.

Literally.

She crumples to the floor in a knot of limbs and bag straps, and I hurry over to her, tucking my weapon back in the waistband of my jeans as I run.

“Here,” I say, putting my hands beneath her arms and lifting her to her feet. “I got you.”

Despite the dark circles beneath her eyes and the lines of fear etching her features, she’s just as lovely as the last time I saw her.

But Della fights her way angrily out of my hold. “You do not got me,” she says. “What the hell, Sunny?”

“Walk with me, Della,” I say, reaching for her wrist.

She snatches her hand away. “Don’t ‘walk with me, Della’ me. I just got manhandled by two of your goons and honestly thought they were going to kill me. And between my university and my parents, I have more than enough people trying to tell me what to do.”

“Fuck,” I mutter. “This wasn’t meant to happen.”

“No shit,” Della says with tears in her eyes. “I have had it up to here”—she jabs a hand over her head—“with shit like this, this week.”