The Truman Cage: My Husband Faked My World Chapter 03

The Truman Cage: My Husband Faked My World Chapter 03

I blinked, then let my gaze drop to the smashed pumpkin on the floor. I gave Ethan a small, hollow smile.

“You misunderstand. It’s early — I was just making breakfast.”

“Don’t worry. A kitchen knife to the gut wouldn’t be enough to kill me anyway.”

The words landed like a blow. Ethan opened his mouth to keep pushing, but Julian’s voice stopped him.

“Ethan.”

When Julian pulled the knife away, my sleeve had gone with it, exposing the inside of my arm. It was covered in scars, old and new, crossing over one another. Some were so deep they had never fully healed.

Looking at their stricken faces, I offered an apologetic smile.

“Did I wake you? I’m sorry. I’ll try not to be such a nuisance.”

Ethan and Julian looked at each other and said nothing. They ordered a maid to escort me back to my room and stay with me through the night.

Ethan woke me early the next morning. He hadn’t slept — I could tell by the shadows under his eyes — and his face was very still.

“Clara, we’re taking you to the private medical wing upstairs. Julian brought his team. We’re going to run some tests.”

I was obedient. I followed Julian without a word. The tests kept coming, bloodwork, an ultrasound, a CT scan, and somewhere in between, a doctor photographed the scars on my body and logged every one of them.

A woman sat across from me too, a doctor with a kind face and watchful eyes.

She asked about my sleep, my appetite, my mood — and then, quietly, about the scars. I did what I was supposed to do. I answered the ones I could, and I apologized for the ones I couldn’t.

The overseer always said an apology meant more on your knees. Unfortunately, my legs couldn’t bend like that anymore. After the exams, the three of them gathered around my results. I couldn’t see what the reports said, but I watched their expressions darken with every page. By the time the numbers in front of me reached [25:18:03], Ethan finally set the report aside and came over.

He spoke carefully, like he was afraid one wrong word might shatter me. “Clara, the doctors say you’re severely malnourished. You need to rest.” He paused. “They also examined the scars. They’re… serious. It’s going to take time.”

“You’re safe now. No one here is going to hurt you.”

“I’ll bring in the best specialists I can find. Whatever it takes, we’ll get you better.”

I lifted a finger and pointed at him. The words were already there — You’re the ones who broke me — before I stopped myself. But Ethan had already read the gesture wrong. He caught my hand in both of his and drew me a little closer.

“Clara. We’re not going to hurt you. I swear it.”

I listened, and something about that almost made me laugh. Three years. Every day had been its own kind of hell. Weren’t you the ones who orchestrated it all?

By the time we got back to the living room, Vivian was already there with Sunny on her hip. She’d clearly heard something. She hugged Sunny to her chest for a moment, then deposited him in my arms.

“Clara, you’ve seemed in such a dark place lately. Here — spend some time with Sunny. He always cheers people up.” She smiled. “There’s just something about kids — they pull you right out of yourself. And now that you’re expecting, you’ll have one of your own soon enough.”

Looking at her now, I could barely reconcile her with the woman who had stood in the cabin doorway sneering at me. Was she living in a delusion too?

I let it go just as quickly. They all loved her too much for that to matter. Besides — Sunny had already started pinching me.

Kids don’t always know their own strength, I guess, though something told me Vivian had taught him exactly where to dig in. All the while, he kept smiling up at me.

“Hold me! Hold me!”

He dug both hands into my arms as hard as he could. His nails had been filed to points. Every tiny squeeze felt like being sliced open. The pain came in waves, each one sharper than the last, until I had to fight to keep still.

The wounds were already bleeding. I reached out to hand him back to Vivian.

“I’m not steady enough to hold him safely. I might drop him.”

Vivian gave a sympathetic nod. “Of course — you’re still recovering. You need your rest.”

“Come here, baby. Come to Mommy.”

Just as she moved to take him, her hands loosened, and Sunny dropped straight to the floor. I didn’t even have time to move before his scream tore through the room.

In the same instant, Vivian’s hand cracked across my face, the sound echoing off the walls, and she screamed.

“Clara! You dropped my baby! What the hell is wrong with you?!”