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WHEN YOU HAVE to kill a man, don’t look into his eyes. Don’t think that his life’s as miserable as your own. Don’t look at his fingers scrabbling at your hands. Let your weight come down hard. Arch yourself up so that the whole of you is focused in your hands, and those hands are tight around his throat, and when he flails like a fish, let him. Killing him this way will take a few minutes. Long enough for pity to take root, if you let it. Instead think about what he’s done to you. How thanks to him your friend’s dead, and an innocent man, and maybe your daughter. Think how he tried to kill you too, insulted you, called you a dumbfuck when he’s nothing more than a dumbfuck himself.

Don’t let yourself think, this isn’t who I am.

Don’t let yourself think, he’s just a man like me.

Don’t watch the panic in his eyes. Don’t let your hands go loose. Tighten your grip and repeat to yourself that if you let him go he’ll seize his chance to kill you. This is self-defense. This is legally defensible homicide. For God’s sake, don’t let that pressure on his neck slacken. He’ll feel it and jerk your hands away, and he’ll suck in one breath after another with the awful sound of something almost dead coming back to life.