Balance, or Blood

Lisa had imagined this moment so many times it was almost dull now.

Three years in courtrooms. Three years watching Tim Talley’s face — stone cold, never a tear. Three years waiting for a justice system that chewed Michael up and spat Tim out with a slap on the wrist.

Three years, and then he walked free.

Fifteen-year sentence, served three.

Michael was still in the ground.

Tim? He was breathing, walking, working nights at a low-rent grocery store off Crenshaw. He had a second chance. A quiet life.

Lisa didn’t want that life. She wanted balance. Or blood. At this point, either would do.

She bought the gun legally. Registered it. Practiced at the range. She didn’t rush. She wanted the calm, the ritual of it. Revenge deserved precision.

She followed him for a week. Waited for a night when the streets were quiet, no traffic, no witnesses. Thursday night, 1:12 a.m., he left work with a plastic bag in one hand and his hoodie up against the wind.

“Lisa?” he said, when she stepped from the shadows. Confused. Then frightened. Then still.

He remembered her.

Good.

“You know why I’m here,” she said.

He stared at the barrel of the gun, breathing fast but not moving.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I swear to God, Lisa—”

“No. Don’t you dare say his name.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Shut your mouth.”

Her voice cracked like a match striking pavement.

He froze. She stepped closer.

“You took him,” she said. “You took Michael. And now you get to walk around like nothing happened? You get to work a job, buy food, sleep in a bed? That’s not how this ends.”

“I don’t sleep,” Tim said, his voice trembling. “I see him every night. Every night. What I did — what I took — it eats me alive. I swear, I’m trying to make it right.”

“There is no making it right.”

She pressed the gun forward. He stumbled back into the wall of a closed-up barbershop.

“I’m not a monster,” she whispered. “I gave you a chance. I watched you for days. I waited to see if you were human. You aren’t. You’re surviving. That’s not enough.”

“I know,” he said.

And then he did something she didn’t expect.

He dropped the bag.

Spread his arms.

Stared straight into her eyes.

“I won’t run,” he said. “If this is how it ends, I deserve it.”

She blinked.

A pause.

A deep, rattling breath.

“I wanted to forgive you,” she said.

Then she pulled the trigger.

The sound cracked down the street like thunder splitting pavement. Tim crumpled to the ground instantly, his legs folding under him, a dark bloom spreading across his chest.

Lisa didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.

The smell of gunpowder lingered. Acrid. Final.

It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t cinematic. He didn’t whisper any last words. He just died.

Fast.

Quiet.

Done.

She stood there a moment longer, gun still warm in her hand.

Then she walked.

No sprint, no panic.

She ditched the gun in the L.A. River, wiped clean. She’d thought this part through. Every step.

No witnesses.

No security cameras.

Just a dead man and silence.

A Week Later

The news covered it for twenty seconds. “Young man, formerly convicted of a 2019 murder, found shot in South L.A.” Police speculated gang retaliation. No suspects. No leads.

No justice, they said.

Lisa didn’t care.

She slept that night. For the first time in years, her body stopped bracing for pain.

There were no nightmares. Just the quiet hum of her ceiling fan and the memory of her brother’s laugh.

Three Months Later

She went back to therapy.

Her therapist looked at her differently now. More cautious. Like she could feel the shift in the room.

“I feel… lighter,” Lisa said. “Not happy. Not healed. Just… lighter.”

Her therapist didn’t ask what changed.

Maybe they already knew.

“Do you regret it?” they finally asked.

Lisa thought about it.

“No,” she said. “I regret that it had to be me. I regret that he left me no other option. But do I regret doing it?”

She shook her head.

“I buried my brother. And the man who killed him got to live. That wasn’t right.”

“But justice isn’t vengeance,” the therapist said.

“No,” Lisa said. “It’s not.”

She met their gaze, steady.

“Sometimes justice dies. And all that’s left is the choice to bury it — or become it.”

One Year Later

Nobody ever questioned her.

No late-night knocks at the door.

No detectives sniffing around.

It was like the universe sighed and moved on.

Sometimes she still saw Tim in her dreams. But not screaming. Not angry. Just there. Silent.

And Michael, too.

Standing beside her in the kitchen, making coffee, wearing that old green jacket she should’ve burned years ago.

She never told anyone what she did.

Not her mother.

Not her therapist.

Not God.

Some truths were between her and the dead.

Final Line

Lisa didn’t believe in forgiveness anymore.

She believed in silence.

In sleep.

In peace bought at a price.

And she paid it.

In full.

It started small.

A manila envelope under her door.

No note. No name.

Just a flash drive inside.

She plugged it into her laptop and stared at the single video file- CAM_0312.mp4

Her mouth went dry.

She hit play.

There she was.

On the street.

Pointing the gun.

Pulling the trigger.

The timestamp- 1:13 a.m.

A security cam. Hidden. Angled perfectly.

Someone saw.

Someone knew.

The Message

The next day, another envelope.

This time, a note.

“I don’t want money. I don’t want revenge. I want the truth. One conversation. You choose the place. You choose the time. — I.”

Lisa’s blood iced over.

It wasn’t the police. It wasn’t a threat.

It was worse.

It was personal.

She Chose the Diner

A quiet spot on Slauson, 3 p.m., weekdays dead.

She sat in the booth, heart hammering, hand clutching her bag — the same one that used to carry the gun.

At 3:11, he walked in.

Young. Mid-20s. Slight frame. Clean hoodie, scuffed shoes. Eyes like a storm that never stopped raining.

He slid into the booth.

“I’m Ivan,” he said. “Tim’s little brother.”

Lisa blinked. “He never mentioned you.”

“I don’t think he wanted to,” Ivan said. “He tried to cut ties with all of us after the trial. I didn’t blame him.”

He pulled out his phone. Set it on the table.

“Don’t worry. No recording. This isn’t about cops.”

“What is it about, then?”

“I just want to know why.”

Lisa stared at him.

His jaw was tight, but his voice didn’t waver. He wasn’t here to fight. He wasn’t here to beg.

He was here for answers.

“You want the truth?” she said. “I gave him mercy. The night I pulled the gun, I gave him a chance. I let him live.”

“Then why didn’t you walk away?”

“Because he was still alive. And my brother wasn’t. And I woke up every day with that fact hammering my ribs like a heartbeat.”

Ivan nodded slowly.

“I watched the video fifty times,” he said. “You didn’t hesitate. Not once.”

“I did,” she said quietly. “For three years.”

They sat in silence. A waitress refilled coffee they didn’t touch.

Then Ivan said, “He was trying to be better.”

“And I was trying to live with knowing he existed.”

“You think you’ll feel clean now?”

“No,” Lisa said. “But I feel finished.”

He leaned back.

Then, to her surprise, he slid the flash drive across the table.

“I deleted the backups,” he said. “I just needed to look you in the eye first.”

Lisa didn’t take it.

She didn’t move.

“You could’ve gone to the cops,” she said.

“I thought about it,” he admitted. “But then I remembered who my brother was. What he did. And maybe… maybe this was balance.”

She finally looked at him — really looked.

Ivan had that same quiet sorrow Tim wore the night he died. That weight of understanding that some scars aren’t yours but you carry them anyway.

“I’m sorry you lost him,” she said.

He nodded.

“I’m sorry you lost Michael.”

Two Years Later

Lisa never saw Ivan again.

She kept the flash drive in a drawer she never opened.

She still had bad nights. Still startled when sirens screamed past her apartment. Still watched shadows more than she used to.

But there was a stillness now.

Not peace.

Not absolution.

Just settling.

She didn’t regret it.

She also didn’t celebrate it.

What she had done lived in her like an old wound that didn’t ache anymore — but never fully healed.

She stood by Michael’s grave, wind curling around her legs, a single flower in hand.

“Hey,” she whispered. “I did something I can’t take back. And I hope, wherever you are, you understand why.”

She set the flower down. The soil was still, like it had finally settled.

“I thought it would bring balance,” she said. “Or maybe blood. I wasn’t sure which. Maybe I still don’t know.”

A pause. The wind tugged at her coat.

“But I did it. And I’m still here. Still walking.”

She touched the headstone with two fingers, just briefly.

“I didn’t forgive him,” she said. “I forgave myself.”

Then she walked away.

Still carrying the cost. But walking all the same.