Page 91 of Knot Their Arrangement

Every muscle screams in protest, every breath feels like swallowing glass, yet some primal instinct demands I get up.

Keep moving. Keep fighting. Keep running.

When I finally manage to stand, my shoulders heave with the effort of drawing breath. The rain has plastered my saree to my skin, the once-beautiful fabric now nothing but a sodden prison weighing me down.

Movement in the distance catches my eye – multiple figures approaching through the trees. My overtaxed mind immediately conjures the worst possibilities:Hunters. Opportunistic Alphas. Men who prowl these woods looking for exactly what I am – a helpless Omega, alone and vulnerable.

A whimper escapes me as tears blur my already compromised vision. Is this what all my running has led to?

To escape a masked killer only to fall prey to the kind of monsters that feature in cautionary tales told to young Omegas?

I've heard the stories. We all have. Whispered accounts of what happens to Omegas who wander into the wrong territories, who trust the wrong people, who simply exist in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Stories of bodies found with ankles chained together – a post-mortem courtesy to prevent further violation.

Is that my fate? To become another whispered warning?

My grandmother's words echo in my mind, wisdom passed down through generations of women who learned to bend rather than break:

"Sometimes, beta, the river must flow around the mountain because it cannot move it."

But I'm so tired of flowing around mountains.

Exhausted of bending, of adapting, of surviving.

Lightning splits the sky like divine judgment, followed by thunder that shakes the earth beneath my feet. The rain transforms from a gentle sprinkle to a punishing deluge, as if the heavens themselves have decided to weigh in on my situation.

My hands press against my face, fingers tracing features I can barely recognize anymore.

Am I still the same girl who dreamed of freedom? Who believed in love and passion and happy endings? Or has fear carved me into this permanent being of emotional imbalance?

The whimpers start small, barely audible above the rain. But they grow, building into wails that harmonize with the storm's fury. All the pain, all the fear, all the desperate longing for something better – it pours out of me like the rain that's turning the forest floor to mud.

I've reached my breaking point.

The realization brings with it a strange sort of peace. I've been running for so long – from my family, from tradition, from arranged marriages and forced submissions. Always moving, always hiding, always fighting for just one more moment of freedom.

But for what?

Why is it so impossible for an Omega to find peace? To experience the love and adoration that our fairy tales promise us? To be cherished and protected rather than owned and controlled?

Everyone wonders why there's such a decline in Alpha-Omega pairings, and why our numbers dwindle with each generation. But the answer is obvious to anyone who's lived it: death becomes preferable to this endless cycle of running and surviving.

The masked killer. The gang of approaching strangers. Maharaja and his pack. My father and his business associates. They're all just different faces of the same oppression, different mountains trying to shape my flow.

I'm done flowing.

The rain continues its assault, turning my body numb with its icy fingers. My saree – this symbol of tradition and propriety – clings to me like a shroud. How fitting that I should face my end dressed in the very garments that marked the beginning of my rebellion.

Standing here in the storm, I finally understood something fundamental:peace was never possible while running.

Not real peace.

Not the kind that sinks into your bones and lets you breathe fully.

The figures draw closer through the rain, and I make no move to flee. Let them come – whether they're hunters or helpers, killers or saviors.

I'm tired of letting fear guide my steps, of letting survival instinct override everything else that makes life worth living.

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