Chapter 36: Documentary
The cell block on Saturday mornings possessed a particular flavor of quiet—the exhausted, sedated quiet of men worn down by the unyielding sameness of the week. No structured work, no regimented yard time. Just the long, loose-limbed stretch of hours filled with stolen naps, dog-eared paperbacks, and murmured conversations that drifted like smoke.
Angel was nestled in the lower bunk, a living blanket draped across Dominic’s chest. He was in that soft, pliable state between sleep and wakefulness, limbs loose, breathing even. Dominic’s large hand rested on the boy’s back, a steady, warm weight. He was reading a battered copy of Dante’s Inferno, the book held carefully in his other hand to avoid jostling the human furnace on his torso.
“The teeth is down,” Angel mumbled against his t-shirt.
Dominic didn’t look up from the page. “It was cold.”
“Cold. I dreamt of teeth. A big bowl of teeth with syrup.”
“That’s not a dream, it’s a dentist’s nightmare.” Dominic turned a page. “Go back to sleep.”
Angel wriggled deeper, seeking more contact, his leg hooking over Dominic’s. He nuzzled his face against the claiming bite scar on Dominic’s neck, inhaling his Alpha’s scent—a deep, anchoring perfume of cedar, worn leather, and the faint, clean tang of soap. It was his primary and most reliable comfort. More than the gray walls or the steel bunks, the scent of his Daddy was home.
The peace held for perhaps twenty more minutes, a lazy, suspended cocoon.
Then the heavy clang of a key in the door’s lock shattered the quiet. Dominic’s eyes lifted from the page, his body tensing subtly beneath Angel’s weight. Visitation wasn’t scheduled. Unexpected noise usually meant trouble.
The door slid open with a metallic screech. C.O. Brickman, a man with a permanent frown etched into a face like boiled ham, filled the doorway. His gaze swept over the intimate domestic scene without a flicker of interest.
“Emberly,” Brickman grunted.
Angel stirred, lifting his head. His platinum curls were a chaotic halo, flattened on one side. “Me?”
“Got visitors. Handlers. Let’s go.”
The tension in Dominic’s frame ratcheted up a notch.Visitors were rare. Unannounced visitors rarer still. And handlers—the term was officious, cold. Not family, not lawyers. For Angel, the possibilities were limited and almost universally unpleasant. Social workers wanting to re-evaluate his mental competency. Archivists for cold cases looking for a fresh quote. Ghouls.
Dominic’s hand tightened on Angel’s back. “Who are they?”
“Didn’t ask for a bio, Ricciardi. They cleared security, they got a time slot. The kid’s got an hour.” Brickman’s tone was final. He jerked his head toward the corridor. “Now, Emberly. Or I tell them you declined.”
Declining was sometimes an option. But curiosity, for Angel, was a gravitational force. He sat up, rubbing his eyes with small fists. “I have visitors?” He sounded bewildered, almost hopeful. “Is it Santa? I wrote him a letter.”
“It’s not Santa,” Dominic said, sitting up. He kept a firm grip on Angel’s wrist. “You don’t have to go.”
But Angel was already slipping off the bunk, his bare feet slapping on the cold concrete floor. “It’s okay, Daddy. Maybe they have candy. Or magazines with pictures of desserts.” He looked at Brickman. “Do they have dessert magazines?”
Brickman blinked slowly. “Get your shoes, kid.”
Dominic stood. He was a head taller than the guard, his presence expanding to fill the cell. “Who vouched for them?”
“Wexler vetted the request. Said it was clear.” Brickman met Dominic’s gaze. There was no animosity there, just a weary professional understanding. Doc’s opinion carried weight. If Wexler said it was clean, it likely was. Something non-threatening, at least physically. “It’s in the blue room. Glass. Fully monitored.”
The blue room. The sterile visitor’s cell for high-interest or problematic inmates. No contact. Just a phone and a pane of smudged, bulletproof glass.
Some of the predatory stiffness left Dominic’s shoulders. Glass was good. Separation was good. But his instinct to shield his son was a drumbeat in his blood. Angel was eighteen in years, but in the ways that mattered in the world beyond these walls, he was a vulnerable, feral child wearing a beautiful mask.
“I’ll be okay, Daddy,” Angel said, leaning up to press a soft, quick kiss to Dominic’s stubbled cheek. His lips were sleep-warm. “I’ll tell you all about it. If they have candy, I’ll try to sneak you the red ones.”
He pulled on his state-issue sneakers without tying them and trotted to the door, his curls bouncing. He glanced back once, a flash of dark blue eyes, and gave a small, trusting wave. Then he was gone, swallowed by the corridor with Brickman.
Dominic remained standing in the center of the empty cell. The warmth where Angel had lain was already fading. The silence now was different. It was listening silence. He closed the book and set it on the bunk with precise care.
He left the cell and walked down the tier to a cell four doors down. The door was open. Rafael was sitting on his bunk, meticulously folding a single sheet of newspaper into an intricate, sharp-edged shape.
“Heard,” Rafael said, not looking up. His fingers moved with surgical precision.
“Wexler vetted it.”
“Documentary crew,” Rafael stated. His sources in administration were flawless. “Two producers. Traveling. Interviewing juvenile lifers for a series. ‘The Children of Forever.’ Cute title.”
Dominic leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms.A documentary. Exploitation, then. But a professional kind. “They want the cannibal kid.”
“Naturally. He’s their crown jewel. Eighteen, looks fifteen, ate his family. He’s a ratings spike wrapped in a tragic enigma.”
“Will they bait him?”
Rafael completed a fold, examining his work. A paper dagger. “Unlikely. They want him sweet and eerie. They want the disconnect. If they agitate him, they just get a distressed kid. Not good TV.” He looked up, his dark eyes unreadable. “He’ll probably enjoy it. He likes talking. And new people.”
That was the unsettling truth. Angel had no understanding of his own notoriety. He didn’t grasp the horror people felt. To him, his crime was just something he did, a fact like his hair color. He’d discuss the texture of a human kidney with the same earnest detail he’d use to describe the texture of tapioca pudding.
“You want me to go listen at the monitor’s station?” Rafael offered, setting the paper dagger aside.
Dominic considered. He wanted to. The urge to be a silent, looming guardian in the room was a physical ache. But trust was a currency here, and spending it on a televised interview felt weak. “No. Doc said it was clear. We wait.”
---
The blue room smelled of bleach, industrial cleaner, and the faint, metallic scent of latent despair. The walls were a faded, depressing cyan. Angel was ushered to a hard plastic seat bolted to the floor. Before him was a wide counter, and beyond that, the thick glass partition. A black telephone handset rested in a cradle on his side; its twin sat on the other. A single, buzzing fluorescent light overhead made everything look sallow and sickly.
He sat, fidgeting. He’d been here once before, years ago, when a bored public defender had explained the appeals process he didn’t understand. He kicked his feet slightly, the untied laces of his sneakers slapping the chair leg.
On the other side of the glass, a door opened. Two men walked in. They were civilians, and they looked out of place, like exotic birds that had stumbled into a cave. One was older, maybe Dom’s age but softer, with a neat salt-and-pepper beard and glasses. He wore a dark polo shirt and a worn leather satchel. The other was younger, late twenties, lean, with a carefully curated stubble and an expensive-looking canvas jacket. They both carried a sense of focused, professional curiosity.
They saw Angel.
He saw the moment their professional masks slipped. It was a tiny, synchronized jolt. A quick glance at each other, then back at him. The younger one’s eyebrows rose slightly.Angel smiled. He had a lovely, disarming smile, wide and guileless. He gave a small, tentative wave.
The older man recovered first. He smiled back, a warm, practiced expression. He gestured to the phone.
Angel picked up his heavy handset. He held it to his ear like it was a delicate seashell. “Hello?”
“Hello, Angel,” the older man’s voice came through, tinny but clear. “My name is Peter. This is my colleague, Liam. Thank you for agreeing to speak with us.”
“Okay,” Angel said. He watched Liam unpack a small audio recorder and set it on the counter. A red light blinked on. “Is that a robot?”
“It’s a recorder,” Peter said gently. “So we can remember everything you say. Is that alright?”
“Sure. My daddy has a watch that remembers things too. But it doesn’t have a light. His is boring.”
Another shared glance. Daddy.
“Your… daddy?” Liam spoke for the first time. His voice was younger, smoother.
“Dominic,” Angel said, as if it explained everything. “He’s my daddy. He’s the best. He has lots of tattoos. And he’s very strong. He scolds me when I’m bad, but I’m usually not that bad.”
Peter’s smile remained plastered on, but his eyes had become intensely, professionally curious. “That’s good to hear. We’d like to talk to you a little about yourself, Angel. Is that okay?”
Angel nodded enthusiastically, his curls bouncing. “I like talking. Do you have candy?”
Liam almost laughed, a choked-off sound. “Ah, no. Sorry. No food allowed.”
“Oh.” Angel’s face fell momentarily. “That’s a bad rule. Sometimes they let you have candy. Once a pastor gave me a butterscotch. It was so good. I kept the wrapper for a month.” He brightened. “What do you want to talk about?”
Peter cleared his throat, leaning slightly closer to the glass, as if proximity could bridge the chasm between their realities. “We’re talking to young men and women across the country who, like you, are serving very long sentences for crimes they committed when they were very young. We want to understand… well, we want to hear your story. In your own words.”
“My story.” Angel repeated, his gaze drifting. He looked thoughtful, his head tilted. “Which part? There’s the part with the birds from yesterday. Daddy was cross about that. Or the part where I learned to play spades but I’m not very good because I like the pictures on the cards more than the numbers. Or…”
“Perhaps,” Peter interjected softly, “you could start by telling us about your family. The family you had… before.”
Angel’s eyes focused back on him. The sweet expression didn’t change, but something in his posture shifted, a subtle settling. “My before family.”
“Yes.”
He was silent for a long moment, his fingers tracing the cord of the telephone. Liam watched the recorder’s red light, a tiny Cyclops staring at the boy.
“Mommy was a teacher. She smelled like chalk and lemons. She used to braid my hair when it got long, but she pulled too tight sometimes and it hurt. She said I was too sensitive. Daddy—my before daddy—he worked with cars. His hands were always black, but not in a bad way. In a busy way. He’d come home and the smell of gasoline would follow him. I liked it. It was a strong smell.” Angel’s voice was soft, nostalgic, utterly sane. “My brother, Leo, was bigger. He was an Alpha. He played football. He’d wrestle with me but he’d pin me too hard and sit on me until I couldn’t breathe. He said it was funny.”
Peter nodded encouragingly. “And you were… how old when this happened?”
“Fourteen,” Angel said. The number dropped like a stone in a pond. He was fourteen. A child. A cannibal. “I was little. I’m bigger now. I have my own muscles, see?” He pulled up the sleeve of his jumpsuit, flexing a slender, pale bicep.
“You do,” Liam said, his voice strangely thick.
“Why did it happen, Angel?” Peter asked. The question hung in the canned air of the booth, blunt and unavoidable.
Angel’s brow furrowed, not in distress, but in the effort of true recollection. “It was… it was very loud. In my head. All the time. Like a radio stuck between stations, but it was all their voices. Mommy saying stand up straight, Leo laughing, Daddy revving his engine in the driveway.And smells. So many smells. All their feelings. Mommy’s worry was sharp, like burnt plastic. Daddy’s tiredness was like old oil. Leo’s… happiness was like sweat and mud. It got on me. It coated my skin.” He spoke with the eerie clarity of someone describing a dream. “I wanted it to be quiet. I wanted the smells to be mine. Not theirs.”
Peter’s pen, hovering over a notepad, had stilled. Liam was utterly motionless.
“I found the quiet in the kitchen,” Angel continued, his tone becoming almost instructional. “The big knife was cold. And when it went in… first Leo, because he was the loudest… it was so red. And the smell changed. The loud, sweaty smell stopped and became something else. Something warm and rich and mine.” His eyes were distant, seeing the past on the blank cyan wall. “It wasn’t loud anymore. It was… peaceful. And I was so hungry. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, with all that noise.”
He looked back at Peter, his expression suddenly earnest, seeking understanding. “Have you ever been so, so hungry that your tummy feels like it’s folded up inside you? That’s how I felt. And there was all this… food. Right there. It seemed silly not to.”
The silence from the other side of the glass was absolute. The recorder’s light blinked, a mechanical heartbeat. Liam had gone pale.
Angel mistook the silence for confusion. “I cooked some of it for Leo. In a pan. But it got tough and chewy. It was better… before it got chewy. The red part. The life part. That’s the sweetest. It tastes like… like pennies and sugar and the air after a thunderstorm. Mommy’s was the sweetest. Maybe because she loved me the most. Or maybe because she was scared. It adds a… a spice.”
Peter closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he had his professionalism back, but it was a strained, fragile thing. “And after. What happened after?”
Angel shrugged, a small, graceful lift of his shoulders. “I got sleepy. I cleaned up best I could. I took a nap. The police came. Their smells were all jagged and blue. They took me. They asked questions. I was tired. I told them everything. They didn’t seem to understand about the hunger either.”
He leaned forward then, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, his lips almost touching the glass. “I still get that hunger sometimes. But my Dominic-daddy knows. He helps. He gives me fruit cups. And he doesn’t let me have birds.”
Peter managed a nod. He seemed to have run out of scripted questions. The raw, unvarnished narration, delivered with such childlike candor, had short-circuited his prepared trajectory. “Do you… regret it?”
The concept seemed to confuse Angel. He sat back. “Regret?”
“Are you sorry it happened?”
“Oh.” Angel thought about it. “Sometimes I miss Mommy’s lemon smell. And playing with Leo’s football when he wasn’t looking. But I don’t miss the loud. I hate the loud. And I have my new daddy now. He’s better. He knows how to make the quiet.” He smiled again, beatifically. “So no. I’m not sorry. It’s just what happened. Like the rain.”
Liam finally spoke, his voice hushed. “What’s it like in here? For you?”
Angel’s face lit up. “It’s okay! I have my daddy. And Uncle Silas is big and quiet, like a friendly mountain. And Rafi is super smart, he makes shapes out of nothing. And Doc gives me check-ups and tells me to eat my vegetables even though the vegetables here are sad and gray.” He chattered on, a tour guide to his own personal underworld. “The worst part is the soap. It’s itchy soap. And sometimes the Alpha smells get too strong in the yard and I get a headache. But Daddy makes them go away. He just looks at them and they go.”
“And… the other inmates?” Peter asked, finding his voice again. “They know what you did. How do they treat you?”
Angel blinked. “They’re nice. We’re all friends. Well, not friends-friends.But we share. They know I’m Daddy’s. They give me extra pudding sometimes. They tell stories. Fletcher tells good stories, but he uses bad words. Martinez showed me how to do a push-up, but I can only do one.” He leaned in again, whispering. “And they all know about the… you know. The eating. They don’t mind. Jesse, in Block C, he shot six people. He says my way was ‘more personal.’ I think that means he liked it.”
The absurdity of it—the moral relativism of a maximum-security prison—was not lost on the two men. In this ecosystem, Angel’s crime
The absurdity of it—the moral relativism of a maximum-security prison—was not lost on the two men. In this ecosystem, Angel’s crime was just another shade of violence, no more or less grotesque than the rest. It was his presentation that destabilized. The sweet face. The gentle cadence.The earnestness.
Liam shifted in his seat, the plastic groaning. "Does the... hunger come back often?"
Angel nodded, a serious dip of his chin. "Uh-huh. Sometimes it's a little whisper. Sometimes it's a big shout, right behind my eyes. Usually when things are too boring. Or too noisy in a bad way. Or if I smell a certain type of fear. It's like my teeth get...echoey."
"Echoey." Peter repeated the word, writing it down. The concrete poetry of it chilled him.
"Yeah. Like they remember. And they want to remember again." Angel said it simply, a statement of fact. Then he smiled, a solution dawning. "But it's okay. My daddy handles it. He talked to the kitchen and everything. So now, sometimes, on dinner line, my tray is a little different."
He lowered his voice again, though the phone picked up every whisper.
"I get a special plate sometimes. Doc says I need the iron, but it's really for the craving. It's a big piece of beef. The cooks leave it out for a while, so it's not hot. It's cool and soft. Almost... squishy. They don't sear it or anything." His eyes were bright with the pleasure of a shared secret. "It's very red inside. Like, really, really red. The guards look the other way when I eat it. I cut it up into tiny pieces and pretend it's just a weird steak.It helps. It makes the echo in my teeth go quiet."Peter swallowed. He could taste copper in the back of his own throat. "That... minimizes incidents?"
"Mhmm." Angel leaned back, satisfied. "No more... problems. Like with that beta from laundry last year. He cut his hand on a broken mangle and the smell was just... everywhere. I got a little confused. I followed him. But Daddy found me first. He gave me his own steak that night. Raw from the middle. And then a spanking for scaring the laundry boy. A big one." He rubbed his backside unconsciously, a faint pout on his lips at the memory. "So now we have the system. Special dinner when Daddy or Doc or Rafi thinks I'm getting twitchy. It works."
The clinical practicality of it—the behavioral management of a cannibalistic urge through sanctioned raw meat—stole the air from the room. It was domestic.It was monstrous. It was utterly routine.
"What do the other inmates think of your... special dinner?" Liam asked, his journalist's instinct clawing back through the shock.
Angel giggled, a light, bubbling sound. "They make jokes. Fletcher says I'm going to get worms. Martinez calls it my 'primal cuisine.' They're silly. But they get it. Crusher once traded his whole apple pie for one of my steaks. He said his arthritis was acting up and he needed the blood." He paused, thoughtful. "I think he was lying to make me feel normal. He's nice like that."
Peter looked at his notes, then at Angel's placid, waiting face. They had what they came for. A soundbite of pure, unfiltered nightmare, wrapped in angelic delivery. The juxtaposition was perfect. He knew he should stop. Ethics screamed at him to hang up the phone. Career ambition whispered to push one step further.
"Angel," Peter said, his voice soft but deliberate. "Do you ever think about what you took from them? Your mother, your father, Leo? Not the noise.Not the hunger. But... their futures? The lives they didn't get to live?"
The question lingered.
Angel’s head tilted, bird-like. The sweet vacancy in his eyes deepened, not into anger or sadness, but into a profound, hollow confusion. The concept was a foreign language, one he'd never been taught.
"They weren't going anywhere good," he said finally, with a chilling, dismissive certainty. "Mommy hated her job. Daddy's back hurt all the time. Leo was going to fail math and not get into any college. I just... made it sooner. And quieter. I took the loud and I made it dinner." He smiled, a sudden, sunny flash. "It's better this way. For everyone. I'm here with Daddy. They're not loud anymore. It's a happy ending, really."
The click of the recorder being stopped by Liam’s trembling finger was loud in the sudden void.
Peter’s professional warmth had frozen over. He felt ill. "I see," he managed. "Thank you, Angel. For your...honesty."
"Are you going to put me on TV?" Angel asked, excitement returning. "Will I be famous? Can Daddy watch?"
"We'll... send a copy to the facility," Liam said hollowly.
"Okay! Tell them to make it the one with the nice colors. Sometimes the TV in the common room makes everyone look green." Angel waved, already moving on. "Bye! Nice to meet you!"
He hung up the phone with a clumsy clatter before they could respond, hopping off the seat. He tugged at the sleeve of the waiting guard, already chattering about whether they served lunch yet and if there would be peaches.
---
Back in the cell block, the air was thick with waiting. Dominic hadn't moved from Rafael’s doorway. Crusher had joined them, a silent pillar of muscle. They didn't speak. They listened to the sounds of the block—the distant flush of a toilet, the murmur of a radio—as if they could parse Angel’s state from the ambient noise.
Footsteps. Light, skipping.Dominic turned.
Angel rounded the corner, his face alight. He sped up into a half-run, launching himself the last few feet. Dominic caught him instinctively, the solid weight of him a profound relief against his chest.
"Hey, little bird," Dominic murmured into his hair, breathing him in. No new scents of distress. Just soap, boy-sweat, and underlying, perpetual sugar.
"They were nice!" Angel announced, his voice muffled against Dominic’s shirt. "They asked lots of questions. I told them about everything. About Mommy and Leo and the knife and the quiet."
Dominic’s jaw tightened. He met Rafael’s eyes over Angel’s head.
Rafael gave a minute shrug—expected.
Angel pulled back, looking up. "I told them about my special steaks, too. And about the birds. I think I made them a little sick. Their faces got all tight, like they ate the itchy soap." He seemed amused by this.
"You told them about the steaks." Dominic’s voice was flat.
"Uh-huh. They wanted to know about the cravings. I told them our system. How you take care of it. How you take care of me." Angel nuzzled back in, wrapping his arms around Dominic’s waist. "They didn't have any candy, though.That was mean."
Rafael pushed off from the doorjamb. "Wexler’s in the admin wing. Saw them leave. Said they looked like they’d been punched in the soul. They got their documentary."
"Good," Crusher rumbled, his first word in an hour. "Maybe they leave now. No more visitors."
Dominic stroked Angel’s back, the tension slowly bleeding from his own shoulders. The interview was done. The boy was unharmed, untainted. He was just his same, strange self. The world outside could gawk and shudder. In here, he was safe. He was home.
"Come on," Dominic said, gently disentangling them. "Lunch is soon. Let's go get your shoelaces tied before you trip and add a concussion to your list of adventures."
Angel grinned, skipping ahead toward their cell. "Can I have your cookie if they have cookies today? You never eat the cookie."Maybe."
"I want it if it's a macaroon! The crumbly ones!"
Their voices faded down the tier. Rafael watched them go, his expression unreadable. He looked at Crusher. "He told them about the behavioral red-meat protocol. To a national media outlet."
Crusher’s lips twitched, the barest hint of a smile cracking his battered features. "Kid's got no filter. They wanted a story. He gave 'em the whole damn recipe book."
"Including the secret ingredients."
"Now the whole country knows how the Reaper keeps his pet monster from chewing on the furniture." Crusher’s smile widened, a terrifying sight. "Good. Let 'em know. Let 'em see the work it takes. He's not their monster. He's ours. And we feed him raw steak so he doesn't feed on them." He lumbered off toward the common room, his point made.
Rafael stood alone in the quiet corridor. From Dominic’s cell, he could hear Angel’s bubbly chatter, detailing every question and his every answer. He heard Dominic’s low, occasional rumble—a question, an acknowledgement, a soft correction. The domestic rhythm of it was as solid and real as the concrete underfoot.
The outside world had peered through the glass and seen a beautiful nightmare.
Rafael knew the truth was simpler, and more complex. They’d seen a well-loved son, explaining how his father met his unique dietary needs. The horror was in the details. The love was in the fact that there was a system at all. He headed for the common room, the faint sound of Angel’s laughter trailing behind him like a ghost.