“Here. Use it and save us the trouble.” The guard tossed something through the bars onto my cot.

It was an old-fashioned fold-out razor. The blade had inched out of the bone handle on landing. Its mirror shine was just as I’d kept it. My fingers twitched toward it. Was it a trap?

I was dead either way: now in staged self defense or as justice later. Why worry? I picked it up and unfolded it. A millimeter from my eye, the edge looked as sharp as I’d left it.

I tested the edge on my thumb, despite my stubble. I’d never dulled the blade on hair. It drew a perfect thin red line with almost no pain. Just a taste.

Execution meant an injection, sleep, and death. I had never been so clean and obedient. Resisting was worse: Bullets would rip the pulse from me and make heroes of the mugs who did it.

So what if I spared them the expense? It was always about me, never about hurting them. Why grant them any pleasure?

The razor knew where to go. I could think of no one else who deserved the honor of taking my life.