Chapter 14\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some people claimed they\u2019d spotted her on the streets of Paris, even more radiant than before. Others said she\u2019d joined an international aid group, spotted in war zones. Still others insisted she\u2019d started a new life with a new identity, like a heron soaring free-she\u2019d truly left her past cage behind and flown into the vast sky that belonged only to her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Late into the night, the light in Ethan\u2019s study always burned. His world map was covered in marked locations, each one added and crossed out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The search was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Hope slipped through his fingers. Day after day, regret and despair grew inside him-a pain so sharp and relentless, it was like torture that never ended, punishing him every single night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when it finally hit him. The thing Natalie destroyed wasn\u2019t just the old Fletcher estate. She\u2019d destroyed the prison of his own heart, one he\u2019d been trapped in without realizing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cleaning up the estate ruins took days. Charred wood and shattered bricks were carted off by the truckload. The empty ground left behind was bare, like an ugly scar carved onto the Fletcher family\u2019s century-old legacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the household staff -a woman who\u2019d worked for the Fletchers almost thirty years- found Ethan at the edge of the ruins, lost in thought, and slipped over when no one else was watching.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She clutched a small wooden box, wrapped in a clean handkerchief. Tears spilled down her face before she even spoke.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSir\u2026\u201d Her voice broke as she handed over the box. \u201cThis\u2026 This was found in the ashes where the bird cage used to be in the back garden. There\u2019s only a few feathers left now\u2026 That dove- it was the last gift Ms. Fletcher\u2019s mother gave her before she died. She raised it from when she was little, for ten whole years\u2026 She treasured it so much, talked to it every day, fed it the very best grain\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan took the box, his movements mechanical, and opened it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside were a few white feathers, singed at the edges by fire but still soft and pure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They were light as air, but his hand suddenly felt as heavy as stone, weighed down by the sorrow packed into those tiny remains.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The maid wiped her eyes with her sleeve and went on, her words tumbling out. \u201cThat day, Ms. Grant made pigeon consomm\u00e9 out of it\u2026 After Ms. Fletcher woke up in the hospital and found out, she didn\u2019t cry about her injuries. It was for the bird\u2026 She hugged that empty cage and cried herself unconscious, over and over again. She woke up and kept crying\u2026 I\u2019ve never seen Ms. Fletcher like that before\u2026 It was like her heart had been ripped out\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 14\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan\u2019s fingers brushed those soft feathers. Somehow, even across time and space, he could feel the agony that had torn through Natalie in that moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She hadn\u2019t cried for the pain of the skin graft. She hadn\u2019t cried for being punished by the family. She\u2019d cried for a bird-a bird she loved like family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What had he said then?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a pigeon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cold. Careless. Dismissive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The memory stabbed through his chest, sharp enough to bring him to his knees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He snapped the box shut, clutched it tight in his fist, spun around, and almost ran to his car, his voice rough as gravel when he barked at the driver, \u201cGo to Central Hospital. Now!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He sped all the way there, storming into the hospital, and made straight for the office of the surgeon who\u2019d done Natalie\u2019s skin graft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t even bother to knock-just shoved open the door. The doctor, halfway through writing up a file, jumped in surprise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Fletcher?\u201d The doctor got up quickly, startled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan\u2019s chest heaved, eyes bloodshot and wild. He glared at the doctor, voice strangled with\u00a0<\/p>\n
panic and something close to rage. \u201cBack then\u2026 when you took the skin from her arm\u2026 Did she\u00a0<\/p>\n
Did it hurt?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
The doctor shrank from the force of that stare. He paused, then dropped his gaze, lips pressed together before answering in a low, careful voice, \u201cMr. Fletcher\u2026 Once the sedative wore off, the pain would have been\u2026 extreme. Ms. Fletcher\u2026 she was shaking all over, covered in cold sweat that soaked right through her hospital gown\u2026 But\u2026 she never made a sound. She just bit down and endured it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not a sound\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan staggered back, hitting the doorframe behind him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He could see it now-Natalie curled up in the hospital bed, skin white as a sheet, lips bitten until they bled, but still refusing to make a sound\u00a0<\/p>\n
And what was he doing back then? Standing outside the door, speaking gently-more gently than he ever had-comforting Vivian, the one who\u2019d brought Natalie to this.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019d even promised he would always protect her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He turned and rushed out of the hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 14\u00a0<\/p>\n
3\/3\u00a0<\/p>\n
This time, he wasn\u2019t the cool, collected head of the Fletcher family anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was like a wounded lion, radiating danger and fury, driving full-throttle back to the villa where Vivian was staying. A servant tried to stop him, and he shoved them aside without a second thought.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He kicked open the door to Vivian\u2019s bedroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vivian was sitting at her vanity, staring at the fading scars on her arm in the mirror. The sudden crash made her whirl around, eyes wide with fear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she saw Ethan, she immediately put on her usual fragile act, tears shimmering in her eyes. \u201cEthan\u2026 what\u2019s wrong?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 15\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woke Up and Left the Cage of My Marriage 14 Chapter 14\u00a0 Some people claimed they\u2019d spotted her on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-woke-up-and-left-the-cage-of-my-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}