Woke Up and Left the Cage of My Marriage 23
Chapter 23
“Ethan!” Natalie was pinned beneath him, stunned as she looked up into his pain-twisted face, his skin scorched, flames dancing across his back. The smell of burning flesh filled her
nose.
Rescue workers rushed in, dousing the flames on his back with a fire extinguisher.
Ethan’s back was charred and blackened-too horrific to look at.
The agony nearly made him pass out, but he held on. The first thing he did was grip Natalie’s arm, scanning her up and down in a panic. “Are…are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
His voice was weak but filled with unmistakable worry.
Natalie stared at his ruined back, at the cold sweat dotting his brow from enduring the pain, and at the worry in his eyes. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.
Just then, Derek ran up-he’d gone to check on another area and only rushed back when he heard the commotion. Seeing Ethan’s injuries and how Natalie had been protected, his expression was complicated. But he quickly helped the rescue workers lift Ethan onto a
stretcher.
Ethan was rushed to the hospital.
The diagnosis: massive, deep burns all across his back, plus severe smoke inhalation. His condition was critical. He was taken straight to the ICU.
Natalie and Derek waited outside.
Derek glanced at Natalie’s pale face and tight lips, and patted her shoulder gently. “Don’t worry, he’ll be alright.”
Natalie didn’t answer. She just kept her eyes on the closed doors of the ICU, her thoughts impossible to read.
Ethan spent the next two days fighting for his life.
His fever spiked again and again, and his mind drifted in and out. Through the glass, Natalie saw him once-tubes everywhere, his skin gray and lifeless, looking like the slightest touch
would break him.
During rare moments of clarity, he’d clutch the nurse’s hand with all his strength. The words that tumbled out-over and over-weren’t about pain or begging for help, but broken whispers:
“I’m sorry… Natalie… run… it’s dangerous… I’m sorry…”
Chapter 23
The nurse brought these words out to Natalie.
She stood outside his room, listening to the steady beep of medical machines and the blurred sound of Ethan’s mumbled apologies, lost in silence.
Ethan lay in bed, every breath pulling agony from the burns on his back, each breath tugging at the dull ache in his chest. But worse than his body was his heart-caught in an endless loop of torment.
He couldn’t forget her cold, final words-“No need”-spinning like a curse in his mind.
He knew-no normal apology, no confession, not even saving her life could move her now.
He needed a gamble, something absolute, to risk his life for even the tiniest sliver of a chance.
He remembered where everything started -that old riding club. Everything began with his carefully planned “knight-saving-the-damsel” act.
Maybe that was the place to end it, too.
Still injured, he ignored his doctor’s furious protests and forced his way out of the hospital.
He used up his last connections to find the owner of that club and reserved the entire arena.
Then, he sent Natalie a message. Just an address and a time-no extra words.
He bet that, maybe, she’d be curious about a place so full of bitter irony.
That day, the weather was gray-just like the day they first met.
Ethan stood at the center of the empty riding arena, wearing thin hospital clothes with a coat thrown over, his face ghostly pale. The wind whipped his messy black hair, making him look more lost and desperate.
Natalie showed up.
She wore smart pants and a long trench coat, walking with calm, measured steps. She stopped several yards away and watched him, her gaze cool and unreadable-as if she was just an onlooker to a show that had nothing to do with her.
“You’re here.” Ethan’s voice was hoarse, with a faint tremor.
He looked at her-his eyes full of despair and a nearly mad obsession. “Natalie, I know— nothing I say will ever make you believe me again.”
He took a shaky breath and pointed toward the familiar, newly reinforced fence at the end of the arena.
“You love freedom. I’m the one who clipped your wings. Now I’m giving you my life.”
Chapter 23
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He didn’t wait for a reply. He turned and headed for the stables.
Waiting for him there, just as he’d ordered, was the wildest, most unbreakable purebred horse in the club. The horse pawed at the ground anxiously, nostrils flaring, eyes blazing with wildness.
With stiff, painful movements, Ethan hauled himself onto the horse, clenching his jaw hard enough to draw blood. He yanked the reins tight, gripped the animal with his knees.
“Go!”
The horse let out a long, shrill cry and shot forward like an arrow from a bow-straight toward the fence at the end of the arena!
Wind howled in Ethan’s ears as he lowered his body against the horse’s neck, his gaze locked straight ahead-not acting, not slowing for a second.
He really meant it. He was ready to throw everything away, reliving that old scene for her- but this time, not to deceive, but to atone!
“If this time… I still can’t get your forgiveness…” His voice was shattered by the wind, tinged with madness and resolve. “Then let’s end it right here…”
As the horse thundered toward the solid barrier, disaster was only a heartbeat away.
Natalie, who’d been coldly watching all along, suddenly froze.
She stared at Ethan’s retreating, never-looking-back figure-saw the look on his face, the
way he’d abandoned all hope, on the brink of madness. Her heart clenched as if some invisible hand was crushing it.
Three years ago, he’d appeared like a god, saving’s her-only to push her into ruin.
Now, he was about to destroy himself for her sake, full of regret.
Chapter 24
Chapter 24
“Ethan Fletcher-!”
A piercing scream echoed through the empty arena!
Almost as soon as Natalie screamed, Ethan used the last bit of his strength and yanked the
reins hard.
The horse let out a pained scream, its front hooves flailing in the air, nearly crashing through the fence-but at the very last second, it stopped, less than half a yard from disaster.
Ethan was thrown from the saddle by the sudden force and crashed onto the grass.
He lay there, coughing so hard his whole body shook. The wound on his back must have split open again-fresh blood seeping through his coat. But he couldn’t care less. He forced his head up, his face covered in dirt and bits of grass, tears streaming without restraint. He looked toward Natalie, like a child awaiting judgment-despair and a faint, fragile hope mingling in his eyes as he gazed at her.
Natalie stood frozen, her chest rising and falling, face as pale as paper.
That moment of terror left her trembling from head to toe.
She looked at Ethan lying on the ground, like a broken doll, the pleading in his eyes laid bare. And suddenly, all the hurt, anger, pain, and injustice she’d bottled up over the past three years
flooded out at once.
She charged at him-not graceful or composed as usual, but with a force that felt like the world was collapsing.
Natalie stopped right in front of Ethan. She didn’t help him up. She raised her hand and, using every ounce of strength, slapped him hard across the face!
Smack! The sharp sound cut through the quiet arena.
“Ethan Fletcher! You bastard! You lunatic!” Natalie’s voice broke, trembling with years of pent -up pain. “You think I’ll forgive you just because you did this? Dream on!”
She screamed and sobbed, raining blows down on his shoulders and chest-her fists weak, but full of all the pain she needed to let out.
“I hate you! I hate you to death! How could you do this to me? How could you frame me over and over? How could you make a fool of me again and again? And all for Vivian Grant-how could you humiliate me like that? Do you have any idea how much it hurt? Do you know what that dove meant to me? Do you know how much skin graft surgery hurts? Do you know I nearly died in that holding cell? Do you know how cold it felt to hear you say I’d ‘survive”?”
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