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The words land like carefully placed explosive charges, detonating what remains of my carefully maintained composure.

A growl builds in my chest as realization solidifies into certainty.

Press reaches the threshold before delivering his final verbal weapon, calculated to inflict maximum damage:

"That crazy bitch can try to prove if she can outmaster me a second time."

The door seals with pneumatic precision, leaving me alone with a truth too enormous to process through conventional thought:

She's back.

Not her twin. Not some laboratory-engineered duplicate.

Our Jinx.

The mastermind who selected us with calculated precision. The strategist who mapped Ravenscroft's hierarchy with unparalleled accuracy. The omega who bound us together through something beyond mere biological compatibility.

She's returned to the nightmare she escaped.

For us.

The realization ignites something that six years of methodical torture failed to extinguish completely: hope.

Dangerous, irrational, potentially lethal hope.

Because if Jinx Blackwood has voluntarily returned to Ravenscroft—if she's willingly placed herself back in Charles Press's grasp—then she must have a plan.

Must have resources and strategies, and contingencies that exceed whatever failsafe’s Press has implemented.

The alpha in me howls with possessive joy while the tactical mind she valued begins its first real analysis in six years. Seventy-two hours for recovery means seventy-two hours for preparation.

For the first time since her disappearance, I have a concrete objective beyond mere survival.

The beast rises within me, no longer directionless rage but focused determination. Let them pit me against double the usual opponents. Let them throw every available alpha into that arena.

None will stand between me and my omega.

Our omega.

Our Jinx.

THREE

WHISPERS BETWEEN CONSCIOUSNESS AND DELIRIUM

~JINX~

~Partiur Un Joir~

Juilette Armanet

Consciousness returns as a fragmented mosaic—shattered pieces refusing to form coherent patterns as my mind struggles through layers of starvation and dehydration.

The padded cell spins despite my body remaining motionless, institutional white blurring into nauseating streaks across my field of vision.

"Jinx? Jinx, can you hear me?" Maverick's voice crackles through the implant, distorted by either technological limitations or my deteriorating neurological function. "Your vitals are critically unstable. Heart rate dropping below sustainable levels."

His concern washes over me without impact, words becoming meaningless vibrations as I drift between awareness and darkness.