Six hours of being someone I'm not, for people who wouldn't understand who I really am, even if I tried to explain.
The letter waits in my backpack, where I've been hyperaware of it all day, a small rectangle of cream-colored paper that contains more reality than everything I've experienced since walking into school this morning. I retrieve it with hands that aren't quite steady, noting the familiar careful handwriting of my name across the front.
Kent's letters have become a lifeline in ways I don't think even he realizes. Not because they offer comfort or sympathy—he's not that kind of correspondent—but because they'rethe only place where truth exists without performance, where someone sees me clearly without trying to fix or save or cure me.
I unfold the pages with careful precision, already knowing I'll read this multiple times before I'm ready to respond.
Delilah,
Your last letter raised questions about the psychology of justice that I've been thinking about for days. You asked whether I ever feel guilt about my work, whether the weight of taking lives—even necessary ones—creates lasting damage to one's sense of self.
The answer is complex. Guilt, as I understand it, comes from the belief that you've done something wrong. But I don't believe what I do is wrong, even when it conflicts with legal and social conventions. The guilt I carry isn't about the act itself, but about the necessity of it. About living in a world where people like your father exist and flourish while their victims suffer in silence.
You're processing something similar, I think. Not guilt about what happened that night, but anger that it took violence to achieve what the system should have provided years ago. Anger that no one protected you when protection was needed most. Anger that his death is being mourned by people who never saw his true nature.
That anger is legitimate. More than that, it's useful. It means you haven't been broken by what you survived. It means you still understand the difference between justice and revenge, even when the world tries to convince you they're the same thing.
You mentioned feeling disconnected from your classmates, from the concerns that used to matter to you. This is natural after witnessing real darkness. Most people yourage have never confronted genuine evil, never had to choose between survival and truth. Their problems feel trivial because they are trivial, compared to what you've experienced.
But don't let that disconnect make you bitter. Those students deserve their innocence, their ability to worry about grades and relationships without calculating the potential for violence in every interaction. What you've learned about the world's capacity for brutality—that knowledge is a burden, not a blessing. Carry it responsibly.
I've been thinking about your question regarding methodology as well. You asked about the psychological preparation required for what I do, how someone maintains clarity of purpose when society conditions us to view all killing as equally wrong.
The answer lies in understanding the difference between murder and execution. Murder is violence for personal gain, emotional satisfaction, or psychological gratification. Execution is violence as a tool of justice when other tools have failed. The difference isn't in the act itself, but in the intention behind it and the careful consideration that precedes it.
Your father wasn't killed because I enjoyed causing him pain, though I won't pretend his suffering didn't serve a purpose. He was killed because he was a cancer that would continue spreading harm as long as he remained alive. The pain he experienced was simply the cost of extracting truth from someone who had spent decades lying to himself and others.
This distinction matters because it preserves the humanity of those who must sometimes act outside conventional morality. I'm not a monster who enjoys death—I'm someone who accepts the responsibility of stopping monsters when society fails to do so.
You understand this intuitively, which is why you were able to help that night rather than flee in horror. You recognized that what you witnessed wasn't random violence, but justice delivered with surgical precision. That recognition reveals something about your character that most people your age haven't developed: the ability to see clearly even when what you're seeing contradicts everything you've been taught to believe.
This clarity is rare and valuable. Don't let anyone convince you it's something to be cured or overcome. The world needs people who can look at darkness without flinching, who can recognize necessity even when it wears an ugly face.
But clarity also comes with responsibility. The knowledge you carry about that night, about what justice sometimes requires—that knowledge makes you dangerous to people who prefer comfortable lies to difficult truths. Be careful who you trust with any part of what we've shared. Most people aren't capable of understanding the distinction between justice and murder, and they'll judge both of us by standards that don't apply to situations like ours.
I hope your new living situation continues to provide the safety and stability you deserve. From what you've told me, your aunt sounds like someone who genuinely cares about your wellbeing. That kind of care is precious—protect it, even if it means maintaining some distance between who you are with her and who you're becoming in these letters.
Write to me whenever you need to remember that someone sees you clearly and isn't afraid of what they see.
K.
I set the letter down and close my eyes, feeling something in my chest unclench for the first time all day. This. This iswhat real conversation looks like. Not the careful sympathy of guidance counselors or the surface-level concern of classmates, but genuine engagement with the complexity of what I've experienced.
Kent doesn't try to convince me that what happened was tragic. He doesn't suggest I need healing or therapy or time to process trauma. Instead, he acknowledges that what I witnessed was justice, that my reaction was appropriate, that the anger I carry is legitimate and useful.
He sees me as someone capable of understanding moral complexity rather than a victim who needs protection from difficult truths.
The relief of being truly seen, truly understood, is almost overwhelming. For weeks, I've been surrounded by people who think they know what's best for me, who view my experience through the lens of conventional trauma recovery. But Kent understands that some experiences transcend conventional frameworks, that some truths can't be processed through traditional therapeutic methods.
He understands that I'm not broken—I'm awakened.
I pull out paper and pen, already composing my response in my mind. His letters have been growing longer, more detailed, sharing philosophical insights that reveal the careful thought behind his work. My responses have been growing bolder in return, more honest about my internal landscape and the way his actions that night changed my fundamental understanding of justice.
Kent,
Reading your letters is like breathing clean air after being trapped in a room full of smoke. Everything else feels suffocating by comparison—the careful sympathy, the well-meaning concern, the assumption that I need to be protected from my own thoughts and experiences.
You're right about the disconnect I feel from my classmates. Today in history class, we discussed deterrence theory and mutual assured destruction, and I found myself thinking about the careful balance of power my father maintained in our house. How he used the threat of escalating violence to keep me silent about what he did in private. How that system worked perfectly until you disrupted it.
