Chapter 39: Snack
The prison yard was a slab of sun-bleached concrete, a kinetic chessboard of tension and boredom under a cloudless, indifferent sky. The high walls threw long, cold shadows that inched across the ground as the afternoon wore on. The air smelled of hot asphalt, sweat, cheap tobacco, and the faint, ever-present undercurrent of fear—a metallic tang on the back of the tongue.
Sergeant O’Leary, a veteran guard with a face like well-worn leather and eyes the color of old shale, walked the perimeter with a measured, plodding gait. Beside him, Officer Johnson moved with a stiff, jerky alertness. Everything about Johnson was new: the stiff crease in his trousers, the gleaming badge, the way his hand kept drifting to the butt of his baton. His eyes darted, trying to track everything at once—the clustered groups of inmates, the solitary men pacing like caged animals, the intense, whispered conversations that stopped as they passed.
“The trick,” O’Leary said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble, “is to see without lookin’ like you’re seein’. You stare, you provoke. You ignore, you miss the knife. It’s a dance, kid. A shitty, endless dance.”
Johnson nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me in the yard. Shows deference. They smell fear, they smell newness, they smell deference, and it’s like blood in water.” O’Leary lit a cigarette, cupping the flame against the faint breeze. “Watch the clusters. That one by the south wall, that’s Ricciardi’s crew. You leave that one the hell alone unless the alarms are going off. They police themselves better than we ever could.”
Johnson’s eyes flicked to the group. He saw the large, dark-haired man—Ricciardi, the Reaper—leaning against the wall, speaking quietly to a mountain of a man covered in ink. A wiry blond inmate was laughing at something, his hands moving in animated explanation. Another, older, with salt-and-pepper hair, watched the yard with a clinician’s detached observation.
“And the… the small one?” Johnson asked. He’d seen the boy earlier, a startlingly delicate figure with a cascade of pale curls, almost glowing against the drab gray. He’d been trailing after Ricciardi like a duckling, carrying two books from the library.
O’Leary took a long drag. “Emberly. Angel. That’s Reaper’s kid. You look at him wrong, you speak to him, you even think about him too hard, and your shift becomes a living nightmare. That’s not a threat from me, Johnson. That’s a fact of thermodynamics in this place. He’s the sun they orbit around. You don’t touch the sun.”
As if summoned, Dominic straightened up from the wall. He said a few quiet words to Silas, who gave a single, slow nod, then began walking across the yard towards the two guards. His walk was a rolling, confident gait that parted the sea of inmates without effort. Men subtly shifted out of his path, eyes down.
Johnson tensed. O’Leary simply exhaled smoke.
“Sergeant,” Dominic said as he approached, his voice a calm baritone. He ignored Johnson completely.
“Reaper. Something on your mind?”
“The library cart. It was supposed to come Tuesday. It’s Thursday. Angel’s finished his books.” Dominic’s tone was respectful but firm, the tone of a tenant discussing a maintenance issue with a landlord. “He gets antsy without new reading material. Starts chewing on things he shouldn’t.”
O’Leary nodded. “I’ll check the log. Might be a sick call. I’ll see it gets sorted by tomorrow.”
“Appreciate it.” Dominic’s black eyes finally slid to Johnson. They were flat, absorbing light and giving nothing back. “New face.”
“Officer Johnson. First shift in gen pop,” O’Leary supplied.
Dominic gave a slow, measured nod, a lord acknowledging the presence of a new footman. “Congratulations. It’s a vibrant workplace.” His lips didn’t smile. “Keep your head down. Listen to the Sergeant.”
Before Johnson could muster a response, a voice cut across the yard, sharp with forced calm. “Reaper. Hey, Reap. A little help?”
It was Jaxon. He was standing at the edge of a growing cluster of inmates near the far basketball hoop. His usual restless energy was coiled tight, his hands held up slightly, as if trying to calm a spooked animal. His eyes were locked on Dominic’s.
A ripple went through the yard. Conversations died. Heads turned. The cluster by the hoop wasn’t rowdy; it was too quiet, too focused. Men were craning their necks, standing on tiptoes, a low murmur spreading through them.
Dominic’s entire body went still for a fraction of a second. Then he was moving, O’Leary falling into step beside him without a word. Johnson, after a confused heartbeat, followed.
“Clear the fuck outta the way!” O’Leary barked as they reached the edge of the crowd. His authority was a battering ram. “Move! Now!”
Inmates shuffled aside, creating a narrow path. Their faces were a mix of morbid curiosity, amusement, and in a few cases, pale disgust.
Dominic pushed through, O’Leary and Johnson on his heels.
In the center of the cleared space lay Big Tommy Hanks. Or what was left of him. A mountain of a man who’d run a protection racket, now a deflated sack of flesh on the concrete. His throat was a ruin of torn flesh and dark, clotted blood. His eyes were open, staring at the perfect blue sky. The cause of death was obvious, and recent—maybe twenty minutes old. The yard’s background roar had covered the struggle.
But that wasn’t what held the crowd’s silent fascination.
Beside the body, cross-legged like a child at a picnic, sat Angel. His library books were neatly stacked to one side. In his lap was a makeshift plate fashioned from a folded magazine. On it lay several neat, red slices of meat.
In his right hand, held with surprising delicacy between his thumb and forefinger, was a sharpened piece of plastic—a shiv, honed to a cruel point. Its tip was dark with gore. With his left hand, he was carefully peeling a thin strip of skin off one of the slices, his tongue caught between his teeth in concentration. He’d already eaten a few pieces; the evidence was smeared around his mouth, a crimson clown smile. His lips and small, white canines were glistening red. His hands were coated up to the wrists, dark and sticky.
The scent in the circle was overpowering: copper, iron, the faint, greasy smell of raw fat, and beneath it, the coconut shampoo from Angel’s hair.
He looked up as the crowd parted. His dark blue eyes, guileless and bright, found Dominic immediately. They lit up with pure, unfiltered joy. He beamed, a wide, bloody smile that was both adorable and utterly horrifying.
“Daddy! Look!” he chirped, his voice soft and sweet as always. He held up the skinless slice of meat. “It’s really fresh. And it’s so much. I couldn’t let it go to waste, right? That’s what you always say about… about things.”
Johnson made a choked sound in the back of his throat. His hand flew to his mouth. He turned aside, shoulders hunching.
O’Leary’s face was stone. He’d seen worse, but not often, and never with this particular… presentation.
Dominic didn’t look at the body. He didn’t look at the meat. His eyes were fixed on Angel’s face. He took two slow steps forward, then crouched down, his knees popping. He was now eye-level with his boy. The contrast was surreal: the hulking, tattooed Alpha in his prison grays, kneeling in a puddle of another man’s blood, facing his cherubic, blood-smeared Omega.
“Angel,” Dominic said. His voice was calm, low, utterly controlled. “What happened, little bird?”
Angel’s smile faded slightly, replaced by a look of earnest explanation. “Big Tommy was being mean. He said my new tattoo was stupid and that… that I was just a pretty toy for you. He said he was gonna make me prove I was a real cannibal.” Angel’s nose wrinkled. “He grabbed my arm. Right here.” He pointed to his bicep with the cleanish back of his wrist. “It hurt. And he smelled like he was going into rut, Daddy. It was icky. So I… I remembered what Jaxon showed me. The quick spot. Under the jaw.” He mimed a sharp, upward jab with the shiv. “He made a funny sound and then he fell down. And then…” He looked down at the meat in his hand, then back up, his expression turning vaguely apologetic. “He was just lying there. And he was so big. And you’re always saying the garden lettuce is wilted and the protein is powdered and I know I get grumpy when I’m hungry and my teeth hurt… I just thought… I could make it better. I could have a snack and not be a bother.”
He offered the slice to Dominic. “Do you want some? It’s good. Really lean.”
From the crowd, Silas’s bulk shifted. His ham-like face was impassive. “Told Tommy twice to keep his fuckin’ mouth off the kid. Didn’t listen.”
Jaxon ran a hand through his messy hair, letting out a shaky, incredulous laugh. “Kid’s a fast learner, I’ll give him that. The submandibular artery. Textbook. Sort of.”
Doc Wexler pushed through, his medical kit already in hand. He didn’t go to the body. He went to Angel, crouching beside Dominic. “Angel, give me the tool, please.” His voice was gentle, patient.
Angel handed over the bloody shiv without hesitation. Doc placed it carefully on the magazine-plate.
“Now, let me see your hands. Any cuts? Did you get any in your eyes?”
“No, Uncle Doc,” Angel said, holding his hands out obediently while Doc examined them for wounds. “I was careful. I washed it in the water fountain first.” He pointed to a faint pink tinge in the grime near the drain.
Johnson, having regained a semblance of composure, was staring in mute, wide-eyed horror. “Oh my God. Oh my God. He’s… he’s eating him. Sergeant, he’s—”
“Quiet, Johnson,” O’Leary snapped, his eyes never leaving the scene. This was a delicate, poisonous flower of a situation. One wrong move, and the yard would erupt.
Dominic finally reached out. He didn’t take the meat. He cupped Angel’s cheek, his thumb wiping through the blood at the corner of his mouth. The gesture was unbearably tender. “You killed him because he laid hands on you?”
Angel nodded, leaning into the touch, his eyes slipping closed for a moment. “He scared me, Daddy.”
“And then you started cutting?”
“I got hungry. It… it smells different when it’s right there. When it’s warm. It’s hard to think past it.” He opened his eyes, and a shadow of real anxiety crossed his face. “Are you mad? I didn’t mean to make a mess. I was gonna save some for you and Uncle Silas. As a surprise.”
Dominic’s chest rose and fell in a deep, slow breath. He looked over Angel’s head at O’Leary. “He was assaulted. He defended himself. You saw the mark on his arm.”
O’Leary looked. There was indeed a fresh, darkening bruise on Angel’s pale bicep. It could have come from anything, but in this moment, it was all the justification the prison’s unwritten code required. Tommy Hanks had broken the rule. He’d touched what belonged to the Reaper. He’d paid.
“Self-defense,” O’Leary said, the word tasting like ash. He had a new guard vomiting on his shoes and a kid snacking on a corpse. Protocol was a distant memory. Survival was the only rule. “Looks that way.”
“The mess,” Dominic continued, his voice still that eerie calm. “We’ll handle it. My crew. No extra work for your men. Clean, quiet. The body goes to medical, cause of death… inmate altercation. Unknown assailant. Happens all the time.”
O’Leary stared at him. This was the deal. This was the dance. The crew maintained order. They handled their own problems. In return, they got a wide berth. Letting them dispose of a body was a step further than usual, but the alternative was a riot, paperwork up to his eyeballs, and a scandal that would end his career.
“One hour,” O’Leary grated out. “You have this square clean. And the kid… he can’t be seen with that.”
Dominic nodded. He turned back to Angel. “Okay, baby. Snack time’s over.”
Angel’s face fell. “But there’s so much left.”
“I know. But the nice officers need us to clean up. We’re going to be good citizens.” Dominic took the slice of meat from Angel’s fingers and placed it back on the magazine. He took the magazine by the corner and folded it over, making a bloody parcel. He handed it to Silas without looking. “Store that. For later.”
Silas took the parcel, tucking it inside his waistband without a flicker of expression.
“Now,” Dominic said, standing and pulling Angel to his feet. “We need to get you cleaned up before lockdown.” He looked at Jaxon. “Spark. The water main access by the greenhouse. Get it leaking. A distraction.”
Jaxon’s eyes gleamed. “A fountain? A geyser?”
“Just a leak. Something to draw eyes for ten minutes.”
“On it.” Jaxon melted back into the crowd.
“Doc, with me. Silas, you know what to do with Hanks.”
Silas nodded. He gestured to two other large inmates from their crew, who stepped forward. They’d make Big Tommy look like he’d fallen down the stairs in a distant wing.
Dominic put a firm arm around Angel’s shoulders, steering him away from the scene. Doc followed closely, using his own body to block the view from most of the yard. Angel went willingly, but looked back over his shoulder at the body, a faint wistfulness in his eyes.
“Come on, baby,” Dominic murmured, guiding him towards a secondary gate that led to the industrial washdown area. “Let’s get you presentable.”
Johnson found his voice, a thin, reedy thing. “Sergeant… we’re just letting them… he ate a man!”
O’Leary watched Dominic’s retreating back, the way his hand rested on the nape of Angel’s neck, a possessive, soothing gesture. “No, Officer. We’re preventing a war. That boy is the Reaper’s sanity. That…” He pointed a thumb at the now-being-discreetly-dragged corpse. “…that was a man who threatened it. The math here is very, very simple. Now, go help Spark with that reported water leak. And for Christ’s sake, wipe your mouth. You look green.”
The industrial sink in the wash-down area, used for hosing down floor mats and equipment, was deep and made of stained stainless steel. Dominic turned the cold tap on full. The water shot out in a powerful, noisy stream.
“Hands first, Angel,” Doc said, his pragmatic voice cutting through the shocky silence of the room. “Scrub with the soap. All the way up to the elbows.”
Angel obeyed, plunging his bloody hands under the stream. The water ran pink, then pale red, swirling down the drain. He used the gritty, industrial soap from the wall dispenser, scrubbing meticulously under Doc’s quiet guidance. “I got it under my nails,” he said, sounding disappointed in himself.
“We’ll get it out,” Doc assured him.
Dominic stood back, watching, his arms crossed. His face was an unreadable mask, but a muscle ticked in his jaw. When Angel’s hands and arms were clean, Doc nodded to Dominic.
“Face, baby,” Dominic said, his voice softer now they were alone.
Angel leaned over the sink, cupping water in his now-clean hands and splashing it on his face. The blood came away in streaks and smears, revealing his fair skin again. Dominic reached in, his fingers under Angel’s chin, tilting his head this way and that, checking. He used the edge of his own sleeve to wipe a stubborn spot by Angel’s ear.
“Open,” Dominic said.
Angel opened his mouth. Dominic peered inside, at