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It was quiet when Ema sat on the chair in the detention center. An uncomfortable chair--maybe it fit Nick better. She crossed her ankles and tapped the cover of the book. Before she could decide whether to open it and keep reading, a door opened and Lana appeared.
She’d never get used to seeing Lana like this. It was still her sister, with the long brown hair and super fancy uniform and piercing eyes. But she didn’t belong here, in this dirty old room. It wasn’t right.
Ema knew that, from the beginning.
And she’d been right. She’d scientifically investigated and she’d found the truth. They’d done it. They were happy.
Shouldn’t she be happy with this?
But how could she be, when her sister was still a glass wall away?
Ema rubbed her arm. She could still feel what it was like to have her sister’s arms around her. Their first hug for years, and maybe their last.
Never mind that! She was starting to sound like Mr. Wright. Lana was innocent, and that was enough.
“Ema,” Lana said, settling onto the chair. “It’s good to see you. How have you been?”
“It’s only been a few days, Sis.” Ema laughed. “I’ve been catching up with school a bit--I missed some of the classes while I was helping Mr. Wright. But I know all the stuff on the tests, so I’ll be fine.”
“Is that so?” Lana raised an eyebrow. “Even your math?”
Ema pouted. “Scientists don’t need math.”
“I disagree.”
“I’ve been busy!” Ema kicked the legs of her chair. “Plus, I’ve been reading through the book you gave me! That’s way more important than some silly math test.”
“Oh!” Lana looked at the book clutched tightly in Ema’s arms. “Have you learned anything?”
“Yeah! It’s incredible!” Ema opened the cover and tapped the first page. “I’ve been going real slow to make sure I don’t miss anything. I’m on page three!”
“You’re very committed to comprehensive analysis,” Lana said admiringly. “You’ll do well as an investigator.”
Ema grinned. Before this trial, she’d never get a word of approval out of Lana--and now, Lana was throwing smiles her way almost automatically. It was a good change. It was...good, to look at Lana and see Lana really looking back.
Well, as much as they could. Visitation hours were still scarce, and Detective Gumshoe didn’t want to push his luck with another bribery. Ema tried to use her own pocket money, but she’d spent most of it on the luminol, and the policemen just laughed at her.
“I miss you,” Ema said to the book. “I wish we could talk more often.”
“I know how you feel.” Lana’s own voice dipped. “This isn’t what you wanted from me, and once again, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize!” Ema tried to fix on a smile. “I’m happy with this! I’m so relieved that you’re officially innocent, Sis. We’ll figure out the rest!”
“Indeed.” Lana paused. “Speaking of which...you’ll need a place to stay in the coming months. I aim to be released one day, but it will be a slow process. I did forge evidence, after all. So I’ve sent a message to a friend of mine. A coroner, in Europe.”
“Europe?” Ema gasped. “You don’t mean…”
“You can’t live on your own for several years,” Lana said. “You need someone to look after you.”
“Lana! You can’t!” Ema balled her hands on the book. “I’m almost sixteen, I can take care of myself! We just got time together, Sis! Are you really going to throw it all away?”
“I wish I knew another way,” Lana said. She did sound really sorry, and Ema wished that made her feel better. “But I can’t be your legal guardian right now, and you need to live your life, too.”
“Away from you? In Europe?” Ema shook her head. “I don’t know anyone there! I’ll leave everyone I know behind--I’ll leave you behind! What kind of life is that?”
Lana sighed. “You’re still young, Ema. You have so much to accomplish. One day, you’ll be a scientific investigator, but right now, you’re a high school student. A high school student who’s been through too much. It’s best if you try to find your own path for now...away for me.”
“L-Lana!” Ema couldn’t believe this. “You’re pushing me away? Again? I thought you changed. I thought we agreed we’d be better together.”
“There’s nothing for you here.” Lana turned to the side, her hair falling over her face. “I thought I could protect you, all on my own. But I wasn’t the perfect Chief Prosecutor I pretended to be, and I wasn’t the perfect sister you needed me to be, either. I want to be better--I believe I can be. However, it will take time...time that I would rather not spend hurting you.”
“So you’ll just push me away before that happens?” Ema gripped the book so tightly that it left marks on her skin. “Lana, I never needed perfect. I just needed a sister. You’re my sister, no matter what! I can’t just--leave you.”
“This isn’t just about me, Ema!” Lana’s eyes snapped to Ema. “You were a witness--a suspect--in a horrible murder case. You were traumatized by that man, and in this case, they dragged the incident back up. You need time to process. You have as much to heal from as I do.”
“What?” Ema shook her head. “Lana, that was years ago! I’m fine! I’m happy now--I told you so!”
“They told you that you were a murderer!” Lana snapped. “I told you--we believed you had taken Prosecutor Neil Marshall’s life! I could not even comfort you, I couldn’t--”
“It’s over now, Lana!” Ema didn’t know who she was trying to convince. All she knew was the lump in her throat. “It’s a relief, to have the truth in the open. It’s all I could ask for!”
“You could ask for a normal childhood! You could ask for a life where Joe Darke never barged in that door!” Lana looked like she had a lump in her throat, too. Ema tried to reach out. The glass got in the way. “You could ask for a sister who never pushed you away--someone who truly protected you, instead of protecting themselves. Ema, you could ask for so much.”
“You told Mr. Wright not to have high standards!”
“You told me you hated me!” Lana’s voice rose and snapped. “Ema, you told me, three days ago, that you hated me. How can you forgive me now?”
“I didn’t mean that, Lana!” Ema leaned forward on the chair. “I didn’t! I was just upset!”
“And am I meant to believe you have forgotten all your anger?” As quickly as it rose, Lana’s voice fell back to a quiet monotone. “No, Ema. You’re still angry at me. You have a right to be.”
“I’m not! You have to believe me!” Was this how people felt when Lana put them on trial? “You don’t need to apologize to me--you never meant any harm!”
“Neither did you, yet an accidental murder is still a crime.” Ema flinched, and Lana’s face softened, just barely. “I did not mean to hurt you, Ema. But I did. That is a crime that cannot be undone.”
Lana’s hair fell over her face, obscuring her eyes. Ema thought of the fingerprint powder. She wished she could blow the dust away and get a simple answer--a scientific solution. But people weren’t like their fingerprints.
“I forgive you,” Ema said. Her voice was weak. “I really do, Lana. You were just trying to protect me. It’s all Chief Gant’s fault that he manipulated you...and all my fault for getting you in that trouble in the first place. You don’t need to apologize.”
“Ema…” Lana’s face shifted, as if she wanted to turn around again. Ema hated when she did that--there was nothing to see. “It isn’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” Ema burst out. “If I hadn’t been in that office--if I hadn’t shoved Prosecutor Marshall--you wouldn’t be in trouble! You wouldn’t have covered for me! You wouldn’t have shut yourself up like that!”
“I made my own choices,” Lana said quietly. “I do not stand by all of them, of course--forging evidence is unacceptable behavior, and so is isolating myself from you. But Ema, I do not regret covering for you. I would never regret that.”
“What?” Ema blinked. “You wouldn’t?”
Lana stared at her lap. Her hands were delicately intertwined, and she tapped a thumb on her palm. “Ema...you can’t imagine what it was like to enter that room on the day of the incident. It was so dark--the power outage, of course, made it almost impossible to see. I witnessed the room in flashes of lightning. The bodies piled on the floor, Prosecutor Marshall hanging from the statue...and you. You, sprawled on the floor, your hair covering your face.”
Ema swallowed and adjusted her glasses. She tried to keep her eyes open, but she could still visualize it. The picture from the courtroom, with Prosecutor Marshall bleeding from his mouth. The flashes of lightning. The broken vase. Joe Darke, crumpled on the floor.
“I told you before that I panicked.” Lana shook her head. “Ema, you were all I had left. I’d already lost our parents. I saw you there, at the scene of the crime--I thought you had done it, but more than that. I saw you hurt. You were hurt, and I could have lost you. I could still lose you if I didn’t...rearrange the crime scene.”
“I would have been okay,” Ema said. “Scientifically speaking, I acted in self-defense. I wouldn’t have gotten in so much trouble.”
“You were almost killed!” Lana’s voice snapped again. Ema had never seen her sister this distraught. “I cradled you in my arms and I begged for you to wake up. I was almost screaming. Everything...everything changed, after that. I changed. I never escaped from that moment--I saw it, every time I closed my eyes.”
“Lana…”
“And yet, I’m sorry.” Lana dropped her head entirely. Hair cascaded around her face in a waterfall. “I’m sorry, Ema. I couldn’t let you get hurt, so I hurt you myself. I called it the lesser of two evils. It was no lesser--I was no better than the monsters who put you in such a position. I acted because I was scared of your reaction...I acted in my own self-interest. I turned my back on you. How is that the right course of action? How was that the right choice?”
Ema pulled her book closer to her chest. She’d never gotten so much honesty from Lana--but this truth made her chest clench. She pressed her feet firmly to the ground to avoid fainting. She needed to do something! She couldn’t just sit here and watch Lana say these things!
But...what was she supposed to say? Why couldn’t she unstick the words from her throat?
“I’m sorry, Ema.” Lana folded her hands. “I will say it as much as I deem necessary. I will do my best to make it up to you--and part of that is giving you time to yourself. Time...to move forward.”
“I have moved forward!” Ema took deep, fast breaths, trying to get as much air as possible. It was a small room, and she was drowning. “I’ve moved on, Lana! That day two years ago...it’s finally over. For good. I’m happy now--I’m safe. We’re safe, Lana, why are you trying to dig up the past?”
“The trial was less than a week ago!” Lana argued. “Ema, it is perfectly within reason to still hold doubts! You can be scared, you can be upset, you can be...angry, with me. You are not under any obligation to forgive me. You were traumatized. You need time.”
“I’m not angry with you!” Ema yelled. “I don’t hate you, Lana! Why are you asking me to--to punish you?”
“I’m asking for you to look inwards!” Lana leaned forward, too, so they were balanced inches from each other. The glass window was smudged with fingerprints. Ema itched to brush powder over the glass and make out every print--every person who touched this glass and couldn’t get through. “Ema, I’m asking for you to go to Europe. My friend is a good person--they’re excited to meet you. I’m asking for you to go to school and study for your math class. I’m asking for you to be a normal high schooler...go to prom, if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t want to go to prom.”
“You can find a science club, then!” Lana said. “You can find friends, Ema. People who help you and make you happy. That’s what I’m asking.”
Ema stared at her book, her eyes burning. “You told me I could be a real scientific investigator.”
“You can.” Lana let out a breath. “One day. Right now, you should be young while you can.”
“You--” Ema choked on a sob. “I am happy. I’m happy right here with you.”
“You’re crying, Ema.”
“I’m not!” Ema swiped at her cheeks and choked again. “I’m--I’m just upset ‘cause you’re ruining all this. Why can’t things be okay now? You’re innocent. I’m innocent. We can just be...sisters. This could be our new beginning, away from all the stuff that happened before.”
“If there’s one thing I learned from all this, it’s that the past never truly dies.” Lana turned her hands over. “A case may be closed, but its legacy lives on. SL-9 may be closed for good, but the bloodstains remain. Detective Jake Marshall is jailed, and he has still lost a brother. Prosecutor Edgeworth is on thin ice with the Police Department. You and I...we aren’t the same as we were two years ago. We never will be.”
“Then what’s the point?” Ema yelled. “You always do this, Lana! You always act like everything’s a foregone conclusion. You don’t know better. You don’t know anything! How can you say how everything will turn out?”
Lana flinched. “I...suppose I can’t. But, Ema--”
“No!” Ema shook her head. “No, listen to me. I don’t want Europe and--and prom. I want to be a scientific investigator. I want to learn from this! Not forget all of it. What good are mistakes if we don’t learn from them?”
The moment Ema stopped talking, she worried she’d pushed things too far. She braced herself from a cold remark from Lana, or Lana shutting down altogether. She pulled her book closer to her chest and readied to be escorted out of the detention center. Her hands shook--they’d been shaking, she realized, for minutes already.
“I didn’t mean that,” Ema finally said in a small voice. “I’m sorry, Lana.”
Lana stared at her, and her shoulders sank. “No, you did.”
“I’m sorry!”
“I’m not concerned with what you said. You were right to do so.” Lana tilted her head, looking unbearably sad. “I’m simply concerned with how scared you looked afterwards. Am I that hurtful of a sister? It seems so.”
Ema bit back another sob. “It’s not your fault.”
“As you’ve claimed many times,” Lana said. “Why am I not allowed to admit my own mistakes? Why can’t I apologize, when you seem determined to take all the blame for yourself?”
Ema opened her mouth to argue. She could think of several scientific arguments to depower Lana’s claim. But--as always seemed to happen--her words failed her.
Lana had done nothing wrong. Well, she’d forged evidence, but she wasn’t a murderer. She was just trying to help Ema. How could Ema fault her for that? What was there to complain about? Lana loved Ema--how could Ema find any flaw in that?
Except for the weeks alone in the house, bouncing from wall to wall, knowing that Lana would ignore her requests for company. Or the coldness in Lana’s eyes when she looked at her sister. Or the way Lana begged for the prosecution to declare her guilty--the way Lana confessed to a crime she didn’t commit, and forced Ema to run for Mr. Wright’s aid. Who was protecting Ema then? What kind of protection left someone still stranded on their own, still hurting, still protecting the person meant to keep them safe?
Lana loved Ema. Ema loved Lana. They were sisters, always, and sisters cared for each other.
They were happy.
They knew the truth now.
What else could Ema ask for?
She stared at her sister. The glass was smudged. She’d gotten to hug her sister for the first time in two years, and her arms burned from it. Her fingers stung from gripping the book her sister gave her. The first reassurance in two years.
Two years, and the case wasn’t over. The wounds hadn’t closed.
Ema should feel safe, a week after the trial. A week after Damon Gant was escorted to prison. A week after they escaped from under his thumb, under the dark shadow of that case. Ema should close her eyes and smile.
She closed her eyes, and she saw flashes of lightning. A bloody sword, a bloody vase, a bloody handprint. Lana, standing in front of her on the witness stand, begging them to leave Ema alone.
“Lana?” she’d asked, quietly. “What’s happening?”
“Be quiet, Ema. I’ll handle this.”
She didn’t understand. She’d never understood. Lana never told her what happened--even Mr. Wright hid that handprint during the trial. Why was everyone so determined to leave her in the dark? Why did protection mean treating her like a little kid?
A scientific investigator couldn’t do their work if no one gave them the evidence.
Why did everyone around Ema lie to her?
Be quiet, Ema. I’ll handle this.
Why did Ema have to run for Mr. Wright’s help? Why did Ema have to defend her sister? Why did Ema have to wake up in her sister’s arms and feel less safe than ever?
Why did it have to be like this?
Nobody could change the past. She knew that. But--couldn’t she mourn it? Couldn’t she let herself breathe?
Ema tried to breathe, and all she could do was cry.
Lana let her. Lana sat quiet and still as Ema sobbed, curling up on the uncomfortable chair and getting tears all over her scientific investigation book.
She was supposed to be happy. It was supposed to be over. But she could run to Europe and to court and into her sister’s arms, and nothing would ever leave her.
She wanted to be a scientific investigator to find the truth behind murders. So nothing like this would ever happen again--so she could take these memories and use them for good. She wanted to learn, to explore, to pursue things scientifically. She thought she could tear the hurt from her past and write it all down, like an autopsy report. She thought she could become cold and strong like Lana.
She wasn’t like Lana, was she?
She didn’t want to be like Lana.
She wanted to be Ema Skye, scientific investigator. Ema Skye--Ema Skye, a high school student. Just Ema. Just Ema, doing as best as she could. Not a witness, not a murderer, not a prosecutor’s little sister. Ema Skye.
Ema pressed her hands to her eyes, and slowly, her tears dried.
“I’m sorry,” Lana finally said.
“I know.” Ema curled her arms around herself in a poor approximation of Lana’s hug. “I--I forgive you. Or I want to. I’ve got no reason not to, I just…”
“You have every reason not to.” Lana looked sad but not surprised. “As I said, you need time. So do I.”
“Time.” Ema swallowed. “I suppose we have a lot of that.”
“I suppose we do.”
Ema stared at the book in her lap. “Europe, huh? Do I get to see the Eiffel Tower?”
“You could ask.” When Ema glanced up, Lana was smiling, just a bit. Ema’s chest warmed. “You’ll have to send me pictures if you do.”
“I will, Sis! I promise!” Ema clutched her book tightly. “And I’ll read this whole book. I’ll keep studying! I’ll be the best investigator ever by the time I get back.”
“I know you will.” Lana’s eyes twinkled. “That reminds me. Have you checked the back of the book?”
“The...back?” Ema turned it over. “No, I’ve been going very slowly. What’s in the back?”
“Look for yourself.”
Ema pulled open the back cover. A small folded envelope was lodged in the cover. She tugged it free and opened it, pulling out a small photograph--
Oh.
Lana and Ema, posing in front of the Police Department. It was a sunny day. Lana wore her old grey-green uniform, the one with the hat Ema liked to steal--and yep, there was the hat, balanced on Ema’s head. Ema looked so...small. She wore that old red outfit, and her smile was wide as she saluted--it hadn’t meant to be a salute. She was trying to keep the sun out of her eyes. But Lana saluted too, which made it look like it was on purpose.
They both looked so young.
Maybe Ema got what Lana was saying, about having so much time left. Maybe just a bit.
Ema stared at herself and her sister, smiling and the sun, and found herself smiling, too.
“You can take that with you,” Lana said. Ema looked up. Lana was smiling, too. Not quite as widely as in the photo, but Ema still appreciated it. “That way, I’ll be with you during all your adventures in Europe.”
“Oh!” Ema tucked the photo back. “Thanks, Lana. I--I’ll make sure to keep it.”
“I’m glad.”
“I...think I might have some fun,” Ema admitted. “I’ve been meaning to test out some of this books’ tips! A coroner probably has all sorts of interesting information for me.”
“I figured you’d like that part.” Lana kept smiling. “I warned them ahead of time that you’d take a...scientific interest in their career.”
Ema beamed. “I’ll learn so much! And I’ll write you letters, and--and I’ll come back! Soon!”
“I look forward to it.”
“And I’ll be a real scientific investigator by then.” Ema looked down at the photo. “You and I can work together. We can be a real duo! It’s like you said back at the courtroom. We make less mistakes when we aren’t alone.”
“Oh.” Lana sounded off-put, but not disappointed. Almost...relieved. “If you’d want me, I’d be honored to work alongside you.”
“Then it’s a deal!” Ema grinned. “I’ll always be your sister, and soon, I’ll be your second-in-command!”
Lana smiled back. “Then I can’t wait, Scientific Investigator Ema Skye.”
Ema held out her hand a few inches from the glass and shook it up and down. Lana held up her hand and shook it alongside her. When Ema pulled her hand back, it wasn’t shaking anymore.
“I wish you luck,” Lana said. “Although, you won’t need it, will you?”
Ema drew up her shoulders and took a deep breath. She didn’t feel okay yet. Maybe she wouldn’t for a while.
But she had time.
She didn’t need to be happy yet. She would find a path, however long it took. Scientific investigators were patient and comprehensive. Scientific investigators didn’t jump to conclusions--they searched for the truth. Even if it was...tragic.
Ema had the truth now. She could ask for more while still appreciating what she had. Things weren’t always clear-cut. Lana was a criminal but not a murderer. Ema was a victim but not a suspect. Crimes were closed but not over--the past was done but not forgotten.
She could forgive Lana, one day.
For now, she could love Lana like a sister.
“I don’t need luck,” Ema agreed. “All I need is science. I’m going to do great, Sis!”
“You will,” Lana agreed, smiling. “I believe you.”