Page 51 of Watching Ames

Her

I was still pleasantlysore a couple days later, the scrapes and bruises on my hands and knees pulsing when I bent my knees or wedged clay. I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face at the constant reminders of Alex’s hands on my body, my pulse thrumming at the memories they elicited. It definitely didn’t help that Alex loved the bruises almost as much as I did, fitting his fingers into their matching marks on my hips each night with a possessive glint in his eyes.

I glanced at the clock in the front of the shop for the fourth time in the past ten minutes, groaning at the remaining half hour until Alex was due to pick me up. Classes had finished for the day, and June had already left, leaving me in charge of closing up.

I’d already mopped and cleaned up stations, but I slowly dragged my feet into the back of the shop so I could unload the last of the student pieces out of the kiln. Halfway through unloading, a chime sounded, the light clang of the bell above the door as it opened. The store was usually dead at this time of day, when classes were over and the sun was close to setting. We only occasionally had passers-by pop in, looking either to sign up for a class or buy some of the pieces June had displayed in the front window.

“I’m in the back!” I called out, voice echoing as I leaned down into the kiln.

“Hey, babe.” The unexpected voice had me freezing in place, my head emerging from the kiln to take in the face that had haunted my nightmares the past few weeks. Peter stood casually beside me, hands in the pockets of his khakis as if he were getting ready for a round of golf rather than skulking around my work.

“What are you doing here?” My voice came out steady despite the sudden trembling in my limbs. I instantly regretted begging Alex not to rush into revenge against Peter, the one time he brought it up sending the too-fresh memories back to the forefront of my mind. I knew Peter well enough to know that he didn’t like loose ends, and that standing here in front of me right now meant he had a plan.

“I came to bring you home, of course.”

“My home isn’t with you. You need to leave, now.”

“Babe, come on, don’t be like that.”

“I’m notbeinganything. And I’m not your ‘babe.’ I’m nothing to you. We’re done.”

“We’re far from done. I know I fucked up, Ames, but I was drunk.”

“You tried to rape me.” I growled, fists clenching as I grit my teeth, wondering how I had overlooked the red flags that stood out to me in stark clarity now. His ability to downplay what went on between us only reinforced every moment of rightness I’d had since leaving him.

“You liked it!” Peter burst out, face reddening in anger as he reached up and whipped a hand out. His palm smacked across my cheek, sending sparks of pain through my face. I froze, scared to draw any more of his anger while I stood alone, defenseless. “I wanted to play this nice, have you move to our new home after your little tantrum with no fuss. But if you want to be difficult, I can be difficult. Let me lay it all out very clearly: my father has a multitude of friends on the police force. Your sister is a criminal.”

“Now -” He held up a hand to stop me when I opened my mouth to argue. “Despite what her record says, we both know she was guilty. But to be honest, guilty or not doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I can pull one of a dozen strings to have your sister in jail within the next twenty-four hours. Further, I have a man on retainer who can very easily create a false computer trail showing how she’s embezzled money from her future brother-in-law. That is, unless you leave with me within the next 60 seconds.”

Hearing Peter call himself my future husband, even indirectly, caused bile to rise in my throat. But I knew when I was beaten, at least in the short term. Peter was larger than me, stronger, and even though I had fought him before and won, he had sobriety and anger on his side now.

Despite the increasing workouts forced upon me by Dev, life wasn’t a movie with a bodybuilding montage, and a few weeks of exercise didn’t account for the shitty imbalance of natural strength between us. My cheek was throbbing, and while I wasn’t scared of more pain, I was worried about how far Peter was willing to go if I refused to leave with him.

Bex was another story. I knew that Alex could undo any damage Peter could pay someone to inflict upon Bex, but all I could think about was the trial she had undergone earlier this year. The way the trial went on for weeks, even after Alex had buried the evidence to convict her. The way she hadn’t smiled quite the same afterward, the way she kept herself closed off from my friends, despite their attempts to let her in. I thought about the potential job she was quietly excited about, even if she tried to downplay it, and how any sort of legal trouble would ruin her first chance at hope in a long time.

So I swallowed down my anger, bowing my head in submission as I whispered, “Okay.”

I didn’t have to look up to see the look of success written across Peter’s face. It was the same look he’d made so many times throughout the course of our relationship, every time I allowed him to walk all over me, every time he got what he wanted at the expense of my happiness.

“Let’s go,” Peter barked out, turning on his heel and expecting me to follow like a leashed dog.

With his back turned, I gave myself one moment to allow the anger and disgust to show on my face, allowing it to be written in every line of my skin. I glanced up at the small, blinking light in the corner of the studio, making my wants clear as I mouthed to the camera,Take him down.Then I closed my face off, putting on the mask that I had worn for so long but no longer fit quite right, and followed Peter out the door, knowing my family would be coming to get me soon.

Chapter26

Him

I knewsomething was wrong the moment I entered the studio. For one, there was a clench in my gut that hadn’t loosened in days, one that tightened every time I looked at Ames. I had thought chasing her across our property, showing her how much she craved me, how she belonged to me as much as I belonged to her, would ease the tight sensation. But I realized, as I walked into the silent studio - no off-key singing along to the music piping from her phone, no clank of pottery or the whir of her wheel - what that clench was. A foreboding, a warning.

Things had been so simple since Ames had stepped into my house, barefoot and shaken up after what happened in her apartment. After watching her for months, seducing her slowly from afar and then up close, I had foolishly thought that I was done. We had our happily ever after, like some sort of fucking fairytale. But if there was one thing I should’ve known since that fateful day with Cillian, the only happy ending I would get would be one I created myself, through blood or violence or a combination of the two.

I called Dev before I took two steps across the threshold, his voice coming over the speaker on the second ring.

“‘Sup, Xan?”

“Ames is gone.”

“What?” The usual lazy, friendly tone in his voice was gone, replaced by the angry urgency that always lurked just underneath his skin. Ames may have been mine, but Dev and Wren had adopted her into our little family just as quickly, meaning any slight against her was one he took personally. “Who?”

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