‘I was about to say hit me half-hard,’ Jax smiled.

‘Half? That was more like a quarter.’ Now Turner was doing the smiling. ‘I’ll get you an ice pack.’

Jax shuddered as he wondered what a full-force hit would have felt like, what the damage would be like. He suddenly realised he was a lightweight locked in a cage with heavyweights. The expression ‘punching above your weight’ hadn’t made much sense to him when one of his army mates had used it after he’d showed off a picture of Nikki. It did now. He wasn’t in the same league as men like Bluey and Turner. Or Marsh.

JAX could no longer remain anonymous. His injuries saw to that. He’d cleaned his face as best he could and put on a new set of greens. But he still attracted attention the moment he came out of his cell, felt the eyes on him as he walked down the wing.

‘Have a go at this cunt,’ an inmate called out, as he pointed at Jax from the other side of the corridor. ‘Somebody had a good time last night.’

Jax felt a two-handed push then a whack on his back, but managed to stay upright, even as pain ricocheted through him. He fought the urge to run, scream or break down and just kept walking towards the yard, all the while bracing for another hit, his shoulders pulled up into his neck, his jaw clenched. But whoever had struck him had now moved on, absorbed into the groups of men drifting towards muster.

If he’d agreed to pay, he wouldn’t be walking wounded, looking left, looking right, wondering who was going to belt him next. But he would have been spent in nine weeks, and then what? At least this way he stood a chance.

A fresh blast of sunlight hit him as he entered the yard. Then a shoulder.

Okay, a slim chance.

At least it all made sense now, Jax thought as he ducked his head and sidestepped the man that had nudged him. It all added up. Marsh had taken his nod in the holding cell as a promissory note and had been protecting him. He had put the word out that Jax was his. That nobody was to touch him.

But after last night, Jax knew he was back on the market. Up for grabs and fair game.

JAX kept his head down through muster.

‘60079,’ the guard eventually called.

‘Present,’ Jax said, lifting his head only to answer.

Standing at the back off the muster pack as usual, Jax began to move away as soon as the final number was called. He was the first back into the wing and had a clear run to his cell.