When the power falls on me, it buzzes in the warm, dark spaces of my skull. It stings like nettles at the tips of my fingers. The power is a fever I have felt since early childhood, a heat in the blood that leaves me flushed and unsteady, dreaming in daylight.

I'm looking forward to the noose. Nothing better than a good hanging.

A little politeness might smooth the way ahead. Knowing it was his turn to be dispatched, the best he could hope for was as swift a death as the one Massetti had so thanklessly received.