ReBoot (MAC Security 4)

She hands me a prison-issued uniform before tilting her head to a toilet bowl at the back of the room, handing me a cup. I know the process but that doesn’t mean it makes me cringe any less.

I slowly walk over there, doing my business and then handing her the cup and standing back as she puts several strips in there, jotting down the results.

“Negative, negative, negative.” I roll my eyes because this isn’t news to me. I haven’t touched a single thing— “Positive.”

I choke, the noise coming from my throat sounding like a cross between a sob and a laugh. “W-what?”

She turns to face me, her eyes meeting mine as she raises a perfectly plucked brown brow. “Positive.”

“That can’t be right,” I choke out, my stomach dropping. I’ve never… I wouldn’t.

“’Fraid so, missy, the doc will have to come and see you before you go into gen pop.”

I frown, shaking my head and feeling like one of the shaking dogs you see in the back of people’s cars. “I don’t… understand,” I say on a breath.

She huffs before walking over to the toilet bowl, emptying the container and walking back over to her clipboard, picking it up and tilting her head at me. “Follow me.”

I pick up my new prison-issued scratchy blanket, toilet paper, and pillow and do as she says, feeling like a lost puppy. My thoughts are going haywire, and for a second, just one tiny second, I second-guess myself.

Did I take something? Did I do something I shouldn’t have? Was I slipped something in a drink somewhere down the line?

She leads me down the beige hallway, the smell hitting me with force: bleach and dirt, the distinctive smell of a prison. It’s a stench that took me weeks to scrub off my skin.

“Sit,” she commands when she opens the door to the doctor’s room. Standing on the opposite wall, she talks into her radio, nodding at the reply that says he’ll be there in five minutes.

My gaze roves over the room, over the locked cabinets and the stark furniture.

How did I manage to get back here? Is there some kind of fate that means I can’t be happy? That I can’t be free to live my life outside of the concrete walls and fence?

“Who do we have?”

My head lifts slowly as I hear the smooth, deep voice. This isn’t the same doctor that was here before I left. His light-brown hair is that messy fashionable style, his suit under his white coat is well fitted.

“Deacon. Parole breach.”

“Ahhh.” The doctor nods, sitting opposite me and giving me a kind smile before he waves his hand at the officer. “You can leave now.”

I don’t take my eyes off him as he looks down at the clipboard, nodding at whatever the guard has written down and then pressing the keys on the old computer.

The sound takes me back to Evan, the way his fingertips would fly over the keys at such a fast pace that it almost looked impossible to type that fast.

“Have you been taking folic acid?”

“I…” My eyes widen. “I don’t do drugs, whatever it says I took, it’s wrong. I’d never touch—”

He chuckles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “No… for your pregnancy.”

“My… what?” My voice is a mere whisper but it feels like I’m shouting.

He frowns, his eyes flitting over my face before he leans forward, clasping his hands.

“We need to do a blood test to see how far along you are, but from the urine test, it’s showing that you’re pregnant.”

“I can’t be,” I gasp. “It’s not possi—” I cut myself off as I bite my bottom lip, thinking about the two times I’ve had sex since I was released. We didn’t use protection. How could I be so stupid?

My hand flutters to my stomach protectively as I try to work out the dates and when I last had a period. I have to be around eight weeks.

The grin that spreads has me ecstatic, but then I realize where I am and how dangerous being pregnant in here will be. Especially coming back inside… people who breach parole never have an easy time when they come back.