Chapter 5 - The Web of Lies
When I finally opened my eyes, the world was a hazy, muted gray.
The rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor was the only sound in the sterile ICU room.
I tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in my abdomen forced me back down.
“Don’t move, sweetheart,” a gentle voice said.
It was a nurse. She smiled warmly, sensing my immediate panic.
“The twins?” I croaked, my throat raw from the intubation tube that had recently been removed.
“They are in the NICU. They were born premature, but they are fighters. They’re stable.”
Tears of immense relief flooded my eyes.
Before I could ask anything else, the door to my room swung open.
Carol and Vanessa walked in, their faces plastered with expressions of exaggerated, frantic worry.
“Oh, my poor dear!” Carol cried out, rushing to the side of my bed.
Vanessa stood behind her, dabbing at fake tears with a tissue.
They didn't know I remembered everything.
“We were so terrified,” Vanessa said, her voice shaking perfectly. “The police said you slipped on the kitchen floor and hit your head. You must have been lying there for hours!”
I stared at them, my mind racing, analyzing the situation with the cold precision of an auditor.
They were establishing their alibi. They were testing me to see what I remembered.
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If I confronted them now, it would be my word against theirs. They would say the trauma made me delusional.
I needed to secure the evidence first.
