Page 28 of Omega’s Fever (Prime Match #2)

Kellen

“Home sweet home,” Woods announces as the prison walls come into view ahead of us: twenty feet of concrete topped with concertina wire. “Bet you missed us.”

I don’t answer. What’s the point?

The van pulls through the first gate, then the second. Each clang of metal on metal takes me further from him. By the time we reach the intake bay, I’ve rebuilt every wall I let Milo tear down.

I’m Kellen Hayes again, fighter, convict, nobody’s anything.

Except I’m not. His mark burns on my neck, hidden under the jumpsuit collar but impossible to ignore. We’re mated. All the legal technicalities in the world can’t change that.

After weeks of Milo’s apartment with its fresh air and the lingering scent of vanilla, the stench of too many men in too small a space hits me harder than it used to.

Woods and Antonini flank me as we process in, their casual banter filling the silence.

“Told you he’d be back,” Woods says to Antonini, unlocking my wrist restraints. My shoulders scream as I straighten for the first time in an hour. “Nobody walks away from charges like that.”

“I had faith.” Antonini starts the paperwork, pen scratching across forms. “Thought maybe his fancy lawyer would pull something off. Intense little thing.”

Little. Milo would hate that. There’s nothing little about his determination or his fury or the way he—

“I took a plea.”

They both stop what they’re doing. Woods actually looks disappointed, like I’ve let him down somehow. “No shit? What’d you get?”

“Ten. Seven with good behavior.”

Antonini whistles low, shaking his head. “Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been life. Still, that’s rough. Thought for sure your boy would find a way out.”

“He tried,” I say, because Milo deserves that much. “I made the call.”

Woods and Antonini exchange one of those looks that long-time partners develop. Whole conversations in a glance.

“The omega?” Woods asks carefully. Guards aren’t supposed to get personal, but we’ve spent weeks together. Lines blur.

“He’ll be okay. He’s pregnant. I can’t have him—”

It’s the first time I’ve come close to mentioning Cobb in here but they’ll know what I’m talking about. Everyone knows Cobb.

“Man.” Antonini goes back to his paperwork. “That’s tough. Real tough. My sister’s omega just had a baby. Changes everything, you know? Can’t imagine missing that.”

I can. I’ve imagined it in detail.

“Strip out,” the processing guard says, already bored. He’s new, doesn’t know me. Just another con to process.

A few moments later, just like that, I’m back in the orange jumpsuit and it’s exactly as uncomfortable as I remember.

Scratchy fabric that’s been washed with industrial soap until it feels like sandpaper.

The sizing is off—too tight in the shoulders, too loose in the waist. Nothing like Milo’s soft expensive t-shirts.

Stop. Thinking. About. It. Stop thinking about all of it. The baby. Milo’s shirts. Milo’s scent.

I have seven years to get through and then it’ll be mine. This is the price I pay to keep him and the baby safe and I’d pay it a thousand times.

The walk to my cell block feels like traveling backwards through time. Familiar faces watch me with interest as I go.

“Well, well.” Roberts leans against the railing on the second tier, his smile all teeth. He’s put on weight while I was gone, muscle turning to flab around his middle. “Look who came crawling back.”

I keep walking. He’s not worth the energy. Never was.

“Fucking your lawyer didn’t work then?” he calls after me, voice carrying across the block. Making sure everyone hears. “Maybe you should have done a better job of it. Maybe I’ll have a go next. Bet he’d get me off.”

My shoulders tense but I don’t turn. He’s not going to be the first one to talk shit about Milo.

They’ve put me in with Thackeray again. It won’t be a coincidence. The guards know who fits well with who. It’s all about minimizing the fights.

Thackeray sits on the bottom bunk, thick glasses reflecting the overhead light as he reads the same fantasy novel he had when I left, though he must be on his fifth re-read by now. The spine is held together with commissary tape.

“Kellen.” He marks his place carefully with a receipt. “Didn’t expect to see you back.”

“Yeah, well.” I haul myself onto the top bunk. The mattress is thin as paper, springs creaking under my weight. There’s a dip in the middle where I’ve slept for so long, my body’s impression worn into the inadequate padding. “Here I am.”

“How long?”

“Ten years, out in seven if I’m lucky.”

He’s quiet for a moment, processing.

“The omega?”

“What about him?”

“Is he okay?” Thackeray’s voice is carefully neutral. He’s good at that—staying neutral, not picking sides. It’s how he survives in general population. Don’t make enemies, don’t make friends, just exist in the spaces between.

“He is.”

“Present tense?”

I stare at the ceiling. Someone’s scratched their initials into the paint. JB + MM. Wonder if they’re still together or if this place ate that too. “He’s pregnant.”

Thackeray goes quiet for a long moment. I hear him set his book aside, the careful way he moves. Everything deliberate, considered. “That why you took the plea?”

“Ten years or life.” I shift, trying to find a position that doesn’t make the springs dig into my spine. The mattress at Milo’s place was like sleeping on a cloud. “Kid needs at least one parent on the outside.”

“Could’ve fought it. Sometimes people win.”

“Sometimes people die.” The words come out flat. Matter of fact. Kenneth Haymore is in this deep and his words were clear. He’s protected Milo so far. He won’t do it as long as I am in the picture.

“So you made a deal.”

“I made a choice.”

“Hell of a choice.”

I think about Milo this morning, practically glowing with happiness and the look on his face when I insisted on taking the plea.

I wanted to fight it. I did but I’m a fighter by trade.

I know odds and they weren’t in our favor.

Someone would have died. Maybe it wouldn’t be me or Milo.

Maybe it would have been Pen or Damon or someone else.

I’m certain that any choice to fight Cobb will result in someone dying.

I just don’t know who. I can’t do that. If I knew it was me who would make that sacrifice, then I’d do it.

No questions asked. It’d be worth it to remove him from the world but I can’t make that kind of decision for someone else.

As soon as I’m convicted, the threat goes away. Yeah, they’ll probably send me cards on my bunk every now and then to make sure I don’t forget but if they kill Milo, they’ll kill the leverage they have on me.

All I need to do is wait. I’ll do my time and then when I’m out, Milo and I can leave and never look back.

“Only choice,” I say.

Thackeray hums, considering. “My wife was pregnant when they arrested me. Had the baby while I was in county lockup, waiting for trial. Sent me pictures. Beautiful little girl, looked just like her mother.”

I’ve never heard him talk about his family before. It’s an unspoken rule—you don’t ask, don’t share, don’t make yourself vulnerable. But maybe he figures I’ve earned it. Or maybe he just understands.

“How long you been down?”

“Six years. She was two when I got here. She’s eight now. Doesn’t remember me except from visits.” His voice stays carefully level. “The wife divorced me year three. Said she couldn’t wait anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She was right. This place...” He waves a hand at our cell, the block, the whole complex. “It poisons everything it touches. Your omega’s smart to stay away.”

“He won’t.” The certainty surprises me. But I know Milo. Stubborn as fuck when he decides something matters. “He’ll visit. Bring the kid. Make sure they know me.”

“That might be worse.”

Yeah. It might be.

Dinner is the usual mystery meat in brown gravy. Could be beef, could be pork, could be something they scraped off the highway.

I take my tray to a corner table, old habits kicking in. I’ve got my back to the wall, clear view of the room, close enough to the guards’ station that most cons won’t start shit.

The food tastes like cardboard soaked in grease. Nothing like the pasta I made for Milo last week. He’d watched me cook like I was performing magic.

Stop. Just stop.

“Hey, Hayes.”

I smell Roberts before I see him. Sour alpha aggression mixed with whatever passes for cologne in commissary.

He drops into the seat across from me, uninvited. Three of his crew spread out behind him, blocking easy exits.

I recognize the formation. Classic intimidation. It’s to make the target feel boxed in, nowhere to run. Roberts learned it from Valdez before Valdez got shanked in the showers. Prison education at its finest.

“Heard some interesting things while you were gone.” He leans forward.

I keep eating. The green beans are actually identifiable today. Small miracles.

“Heard you rolled over like a bitch rather than risk trial.” His grin widens.

My hand tightens on the spork but I don’t react otherwise.

I’ve fought the asshole before and took him down easily.

That’s what this is about. His ego is bruised.

He needs to save face and show he’s not scared of me.

He’s going to keep going at me until we sort out the hierarchy.

He’s too dumb to realize that I didn’t just get lucky last time.

I don’t want to fight. Fighting is what turns seven years into ten.

I’m not going to be getting the choice though.

My best option is to go big and go hard now and make sure that my reputation is secured as someone you just don’t fuck with.

I sigh and put down my spork. “You sure you want to do this?”

“You’re not threatening me. Are you Hayes? You think you’re such a big man. You think—”

The tray catches him full in the face.

Food explodes everywhere. Gravy in his eyes, mashed potatoes in his hair, green beans scattering across the floor like shrapnel. He roars, lunging across the table, and we go down hard.

His fist connects with my ribs and pain blooms bright. I get an elbow into his solar plexus and he wheezes, breath coming out in a whoosh of sour air. We roll across the filthy floor, trading blows.

Roberts fights angry, all rage and no strategy. I fight cold, calculated. Foster home defense 101. Go for maximum damage, minimum effort. End it fast before their friends jump in.

My knuckles split against his jaw. His knee finds my kidney and for a moment the world whites out. I use his momentum against him, rolling us so I’m on top, and drive my fist into his nose. Cartilage crunches. Blood spurts.

He’s screaming now. His crew shifts restlessly but doesn’t intervene. Prison rules. You start it, you finish it. Jump in and everyone jumps in. Nobody wants a full-scale riot over Roberts running his mouth.

The guards take their time breaking it up. They always do. Entertainment is scarce in here.

“Break it up! Break it up now!”

Hands grab my shoulders, hauling me back. Roberts gets the same treatment, still trying to swing even as they drag him away.

Blood streams from his nose, already swelling. He’s breathing hard, grunting with each movement. His face looks like tenderized meat.

“He started it,” I tell the guard holding me.

He sighs like a disappointed father. “I don’t care. Both of you get written up. Solitary for you, Roberts. Hayes, back to your cell. Now.”

Roberts spits blood on the floor, teeth outlined in red. “This ain’t over.”

“Never is,” I agree. I know his type. He’s going to need to be beat down another three or four times before he gives up, and then I’m going to need to be wary about a surprise shanking when I least expect it.

The walk back to the cell is a gauntlet of stares and whispers. Some impressed, some calculating. Hayes isn’t soft. Hayes will still throw down. Good to know. The social mathematics of prison realigning around this new data point.

Back in the cell, I note the damage automatically. Knuckles split but clean. That’s it.

I rinse my knuckles in the sink. The water runs pink, then clear. The cuts sting but it’s good pain. Familiar. Easier to process than the ache in my chest that started the moment they closed the van doors.

I lie back on the thin mattress, staring at the same ceiling I’ll be looking at for the next seven years.

My body aches from the fight, from the transport, from the loss of everything soft and good. Tomorrow I’ll wake up to the six a.m. count. Shuffle to the showers in a line like cattle. Stand under lukewarm water. Eat powdered eggs. Do it all again the next day, and the next, and the next.

The plea hearing is Thursday. Two days to make it official and that’s just a formality.

Milo will probably try something desperate. It’s who he is. But it won’t matter. The deal is made. Papers signed. Cobb gets his fall guy, and my family gets to live.