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Six years of suspended existence have taught me to read three-dimensional space like other men read books. My body calculates trajectory and anchor positioning while my heart calculates how much longer I can hold her before physics wins.

We reach the ceiling's anchor points—mechanical systems designed for exactly this kind of torment. I hook my primary line with movements burned into muscle memory, then adjust the secondary attachment that makes Jinx's unconscious form my sacred responsibility.

She slips.

For one heart-stopping moment, enhanced or not, she's sliding away from me while gravitational forces try to separate us forever.

My free hand catches her with precision born from terror, core strength straining against laws of physics that care nothing for alpha desperation or omega vulnerability.

Only when both anchor points lock secure can I use both hands for proper positioning—one arm around her waist like a promise, the other providing support that defies whatever systematic manipulation continues below us.

This is their test.

Not just endurance or capability, but whether alpha loyalty can survive the impossible. They want to measure devotionunder pressure that would break normal men, document how far enhanced protectiveness will stretch before snapping.

Hours. They could leave us here for hours before offering any relief. Days, even, depending on how much sadistic curiosity drives their current experiment.

I look down at her peaceful face, somehow serene despite circumstances that should trigger nightmares. Her breathing comes steady and deep—natural healing working its slow magic despite chemical interference and gravitational insanity.

Sweat beads on my forehead as enhanced metabolism responds to stress that goes beyond physical. Yet seeing her after years of wondering if she lived or died provides strength that has nothing to do with alpha biology or institutional conditioning.

Finally.

After years of judging strangers for crimes that meant nothing to me, protecting people I felt nothing for, I have someone worth every drop of sweat and every strained muscle.

I adjust my grip to bring her closer—not just for easier holding but because her scent wraps around me like coming home.

Her face rests mere inches from my chest, close enough that even artificial atmospheric control can't diminish the perfect recognition of cardamom and cinnamon and rain-soaked earth.

With careful precision that maintains our anchor while allowing intimacy, I lean forward and press the gentlest kiss to her chest where her heart beats strong and steady beneath tactical fabric.

"You're safe with me, Omega," I whisper against cloth that carries her essence like the most precious perfume. "You won't die by the judge and executor."

The promise emerges with all the authority years of suspended judgment has given me—not institutionaldesignation but personal commitment that transcends whatever systematic manipulation they can devise.

They'll learn that some bonds laugh at their careful categorization.

That real pack formation creates strength beyond anything their enhancement protocols ever imagined. That chosen loyalty burns brighter than artificial conditioning, no matter how much pressure they apply.

Her unconscious weight settles more comfortably against our shared anchor as gravitational manipulation continues its systematic torment. Yet holding her feels like privilege rather than burden, protection rather than complication.

The trial continues around us with mechanical precision designed to test limits I never knew I possessed. But suspended here with her secured in my protective embrace, surrounded by her intoxicating scent and sustained by recognition that survived impossible separation, I find myself almost grateful for whatever circumstances allowed this reunion.

They can try and measure our limits.

But they’ll be forced to realize our bonds refuse to break, no matter how much pressure they apply.

TWENTY-FIVE

THE TRIGGER WORD

~JINX~

Consciousness drifts like fragments of broken glass through my mind—sharp pieces of awareness cutting through pharmaceutical fog before dissolving back into chemical darkness.

Everything feels distant, muffled, like I'm drowning in cotton while voices echo from the surface of a reality I can't quite reach.

Static crackles through the transmitter, Maverick's voice cutting in and out like a broken radio trying to find signal in a storm.