Martha stood at the sink, too short to see her reflection in the mirror. But it didn't matter. She could see the splatter across her flower dress and the blood on her hands was vibrant under the harsh motel light.

There was a moaning behind her. He was waking up again. Martha walked to the television and turned it on. An I Love Lucy rerun came into fuzzy view, its volume tuned soft enough to avoid a complaint but loud enough to give his screams an alibi.

He moaned again, louder, and she turned to him. After he'd lost consciousness, she managed to maneuver him onto his back, lying the length of the bed. His feet and hands were twice ziptied. Twine wrapped around the bed bound him with dozens of loops as if from a Gulliver's Travels themed snuff film.

When he'd first awoken from the tranquilizer, she'd made use of her enhanced interrogation training for the CIA as she recited the names of his thirteen victims thus far. This would be justice for them and the public at large – a karmic leveling of sorts.

But when the list of victims ended, Martha did not. She leveled and leveled and leveled until Ramirez passed out from the pain. What drove the indulgence was unclear. It wasn't like her neuro-confused masochism. There was no dopamine; no endorphins. But there was... relief?

As if hiking for days only to put her feet up and finally feel them ache, her sadistic flurry made bare the toll lifetimes of unanswered moral virtue had taken. This isn't right. This can't be right!

She was repulsed by the sight of her actions but yearned for more. What the hell is wrong with me?

Ramirez began to laugh and then cough, blood spilling down his chin. Martha sprang for a box cutter sitting on the side table and had it to his throat without a thought.

"What could you possibly find funny about this, Richard?"

He coughed again, then smiled and said, "I figured it out. See, when I first saw you down there... down there on your knees, I thought you were an angel. Because you look like an angel. And then I thought you were sent to punish me for my wickedness. But now I know you're no angel. It was Satan who sent you. Because you're just like me. We're the same. I can see it in your eyes." He coughed again, a radius of blood splatter forming down his shirt.

He let the fit die, then continued, "A little advice, Sweet Sarah..."

God, I wish I hadn't given my mother's name.

"...Puttin' the screws to me might be fun, but it's nothing compared to taking out an innocent."

Nan... Nan, I'm sorry!

"Oh shit," Ramirez said, eyes wide. "You already took one?" More laughing. More coughing. "You're... gonna be... chasing... that high... forever!"

Martha stuck the box cutter into the side of his throat and, after a few seconds, the world was rid of the Night Stalker twenty eight years and fourteen victims ahead of schedule.

He was wrong. She wasn't just like him. Killing Nan was tragic, but accidental and isolated. Torturing Ramirez was ethically dubious, but no reasonable person would shed tears for that monster. And he normally kills thirteen innocent people and assaults another fifteen. There's no way in hell I'm like him!

Then again...

How many lives were lost because of Martha and James' game of make-believe in Hawaii? But James did that, not me. Yet it had been Martha's idea in the first place. But they all came back! As will the Night Stalker's. But...

Then she remembered James' speech as the villainous caricature. Was there such a thing as good and evil? There must be! But can there be without a consequence for either?

This time next life, her deeds tonight will have been erased. Could she grab her backpack and bike and go look for others to kill tonight – take up Ramirez's mantle and compile her own list of victims? Wouldn't those be erased as well? No! That can't be the truth! It has to matter!

There was one consequence left at her disposal, however; a punishment that would outlast this life and any thereafter: self-condemnation without the possibility of forgiveness. For the sake of morality's existence, her crimes needed to persist in the only domain over which she had control: her own mind. I will never live this down. I will always be guilty - always be a murderer. But then...

But then how could she ever look James in the eyes again? She wouldn't be able to hide it from him. And if she told him, he would argue with her – try to convince her to forgive herself, not understanding what was at stake.

Martha turned the television off, then debated what came next. A clock on the wall read 3:24. There was enough time for her to make it home and dispose of the evidence before her father woke up. But was there a point to covering up her crime? She certainly deserved whatever punishment came of this. But my dad doesn't. It would break his heart...

She walked to the sink, stood on her tip-toes, and turned on the faucet. As she rinsed off Ramirez's blood, she contemplated his words. No, she was not like him. In fact, she was vastly different on many levels. Nevertheless, it was alarming how natural the sadism felt. Was he right about that? Even if she pledged unending penitence, would the sadism follow her? And if so, was it an urge she'd be able to refuse?

Martha turned the faucet off then dried her hands on a washcloth next to the sink. She inspected her fingernails. They appeared clean. But like an inverted Lady Macbeth, she needed the blood to stay, if only in her mind.

Author's note:

If you haven't already, google Richard Ramirez.  He was one seriously bad dude.  He makes Robbie Drake look like Barack Obama.

So what do you think?  Should Martha forgive herself?  But if it's that easy, what's to stop her from doing it again, especially if there's an underlying urge?  And if she can't forgive herself, can she really be with James?  You may disagree, but at the moment, Martha would answer with a big, fat 'no.'