The flight was short, but horrendously uncomfortable. Sitting in the same position for hours without use of your hands is something you wouldn't think would be that bad, but is actually that bad. Chelsea wasn't having any easier of a time, from what I gathered. Not that I'd talked to her. Since she’d arrived at the airport, we hadn't spoken more than two words to each other. I could tell that she was filled with guilt, but I was too devastated to care.

I didn't want to be upset with her, but I couldn’t help it. Fighting with my twin was like fighting with a part of myself, and every second we spent in silence grated on me. Knowing what I did, I couldn't find it in me to forgive her. Maybe one day, when all of this was far behind us and the ache in my chest had subsided, but for today, she was my enemy, and that was that.

They transferred us to a humid, musty cell in the bowels of a Miami police precinct immediately after our plane landed. I barely got a glimpse of blue sky before I found myself curling up on a scratchy blanket on one of the room's two cots. Chelsea was on the other one, looking despondent.

Even though this was all her fault, it hurt for me to see her like this. We sat in silence for a few moments, but then I couldn’t take it anymore, and I asked her the question that had been echoing through my head since our flight.

“How do you think they caught up with you so quickly?”

Chelsea's eyes stayed glued to the floor. “I don't know.”

“I'm not asking you if you know,” I said. “I'm asking you what you think.”

She let out a long, weary sigh. “I don't know.”

That was frustrating. I gritted my teeth and sat up on the bed, gripping the sides of it and letting the cool metal soothe my sweaty hands.

“Why do you keep saying that? What are you not telling me?”

Chelsea had never been great at keeping secrets from me. That being said, this whole thing about the relationship with her boss had managed to stay hidden all this time.

“I may have...I may have had something to do with them finding us.”

The words buzzed in the air like great, fat mosquitos. I wanted to swat them down and pretend they didn't exist. I wanted to believe still that my sister had nothing to do with our untimely incarceration, beyond committing the crime in the first place.

But my anger was already sizzling, and hearing her admission only made it worse.

“What do you mean?”

She looked over at me, finally meeting my eyes, and grimaced. “You know that guy I hung out with during the blackout? Damien?”

I nodded. I didn't like where this was going.

“I may have accidentally let something slip.”

That made sense, and explained why she was suddenly all panicked the next morning. When Chelsea had said she was worried about Joel ratting us out, she'd really been worried about Damien.

“Are you serious?” I asked in low, deadly-serious tone.

“I wish I wasn't,” she said. “I'm so sorry, Megan. I didn't mean for any of this to happen.” Her eyes clouded with tears, streaking mascara down her cheeks. “If I could take it all back, believe me, I would!”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, holding tighter onto the bed so I didn't spring across the cell and start clubbing her over the head with her own shoe.

Chelsea had stolen the money. Chelsea had brought the money to me, ensuring that I was irrevocably involved in her problems. Chelsea had spilled the beans her one-night-stand, ending in my capture.

And what had I been doing during all of this? Trying to clean up her mess. Apparently, I was the only one doing so, otherwise we wouldn't be in a sweaty Florida jail cell, awaiting word on what horrible event was going to crash into our lives next.

“I can't believe you.” I spoke in a measured, quiet tone, so it wasn't obvious at first how angry I was. But Chelsea could always gauge my emotions.

“Megan, please.” She crossed the cell and squatted low on her ankles, trying to pull my hands into hers. I refused to let her. “Megan, you know I would never purposefully hurt you. I screwed up. I'm so sorry, and I know it might take some time for you to forgive me, but believe me when I say that I never wanted to do this to you.”

I rose suddenly, sending her falling back against the cement floor. I towered over her with tightly closed fists, so tight that I could feel my nails sinking into the flesh of my palm.

“Not meaning to do something doesn't give you a free pass to ruin my life!” I yelled. “I was happy, Chelsea. I had a job I loved. I had a vision for a life that didn't include rotting in jail for the majority of it. You stole all of that from me, because you couldn't use your goddamn brain for one second! And you expect me just to be okay with it because you didn't mean to hurt me?”

Chelsea dissolved into blubbering tears, and for a moment I wondered if I'd gone too far. She had created this mess, yes, but was it bad enough to be deserving of so much of my scorn? Was I being too hard on her? She was going through all of this, too.

I sighed and lowered myself down to her level and leaned against her. “Hey, don't cry.”

Chelsea sniffed and rested her forehead was against my shoulder. Her shoulders continued to shake and tears gathered in my own eyes for everything I'd lost too. My job. Joel. My future. But there was one thing I didn't have to lose in all this, and that was my sister. Maybe it would take me some time to forgive her, but at least I could make a start.

“I haven't told you everything about what I did,” she said after a moment. She leaned back until our eyes met. Hers were pink and puffy, and I reached out without thinking and wiped away some of her tears.

“Henderson and Greaves already told me,” I said.

“They did?”

I nodded. “That's one of the reasons I've been so hard on you. You were so reckless and selfish, Chelsea.”

“What did they tell you?” she asked, her voice thick with emotion.

“That you were having an affair with your boss, and he wanted to end it. Then, you stole the money for revenge, or something like that.”

Chelsea's devastated expression quickly morphed into one of fury. She shot to her feet, and immediately began to pace the floor. I was left on the ground, staring up at her in confusion.

“That rat bastard!” she fumed.

I stood, though my body begged me not to. I was so tired, so achy from all the discomfort and stress of the past twenty-four hours. I just wanted to be in my bed at home, reading or watching TV, or doing anything other than sitting here.

“Chelsea,” I said, trying to get her attention. She was in another world. “Chelsea, who's a rat bastard? Your boss? Damien?”

She stopped and looked at me, expression wild and furious. “It was a lie, Megan. That isn't what happened. Donald is just a disgusting liar.”

“Chelsea...” This time, my tone let her know that I was growing tired of waiting for answers.

Chelsea sighed and slumped down onto the bed beside me, sitting with her shoulders hunched over the side like all the weight of the world rested on them.

“Donald was so charming when I first met him,” she said. “I immediately developed a crush on him, and he knew it. He used it to his advantage all the time, was super flirty whenever we were alone…he knew that I'd do anything for him.”

She reached over and grabbed my hand as the tears began to roll down her cheeks again.

“We started seeing each other, but I didn't know he was married. I swear. He told me that he and his wife had separated over a year ago, but they were still in divorce proceedings so we had to keep things quiet. I’m so stupid. I believed him! It would have been so easy for me to find out about her, but I think I just developed this blind spot, where he was concerned. I didn't want to believe anything bad about him, so I didn't ask. I didn't search. Then, I found out that he and his wife were very much still together, and that she was pregnant with their second child. I freaked out. I tried to break up with him, but he told me that the relationship would be over when he wanted to end it. He turned into this massive asshole, which was so scary after he'd been so sweet for so long.”

“Oh, Chelsea,” I murmured, wrapping my arm around her. “Why didn't you just quit? I know that must have been horrible, but was it worth stealing the money?”

She sniffed. “I tried to quit, too. He told me if I did, he would make sure that I was blacklisted from every other opportunity. He said he would tell people that I stole, or that I was lazy, or whatever he could to make them not take me on. In retrospect, I know that I could have fought him on that, but I wasn't thinking at the time. I was so hurt, betrayed, and panicked. I thought I was going to be stuck working for him and sleeping with him for the rest of my life, or at least until he got tired of me. I was desperate...” She looked up at me, eyes wide and misty. “I made a mistake. A big one.”

I pulled my sister against my chest and stroked her hair as the tears came again. This time, both of us cried, with great, heaving sobs that drained us of our energy. Our angst. Our everything. By the time we were finished crying, we were empty husks. Even if we were still completely screwed, we'd released a stopper of tension between us. It was a start.

“I'm so sorry,” Chelsea rasped after a while. “I'm so sorry, Megan. You can't even know how sorry I am.”

“I know.” I rubbed her back. “Remember that time in high school when I crashed my car, trying to avoid hitting that branch I thought was a snake?”

She laughed, snorting. “How could I forget? I came to pick you up and you were holding a random stick in your hands, crying.”

“You took the whole day off to help me get my car to the shop and fixed before Mom and Dad found out, even though you were saving up for your prom dress and needed the money.”

“I still got the dress in the end,” she reminded me.

“Only because you took on extra shifts,” I said. “And what about the time Robbie McIntyre cheated on me in junior year and you went over to his parents’ house and yelled at him in front of everyone, pretending to be me? People thought I was so cool after that, but they never knew that I'd been sitting at home, bawling my eyes out over a pint of ice cream the whole time.”

Chelsea chuckled again. “I don't even want a thank you for that one. It was too much fun.”

“My point is, Chelsea,” I said, meeting her gaze. “You've done so much for me over the years. You've cleaned up my messes, helped fix my broken heart, and so much else. You've never asked for anything in return, and I'm lucky to have you as a sister.” I smiled. “Being in jail is going to suck, but at least we're together.”

She smiled faintly and then buried her face back against my shoulder, hugging me so tightly I thought my spine would crack.

“I've missed you,” she said. “I was so lonely in San Diego. Part of the reason I started seeing Donald in the first place was just because he was so nice to me. I didn't fit in there. Not like I do when I’m with you.”

I hugged her back. “I missed you, too. Next time you're missing me so much that you want to start an affair with a married man to combat your loneliness, a quick phone call might be a better idea, though.”

She squeezed harder and my back cracked.

“Love you, Sis,” she said.

We fell asleep some time later, curled up on one of the bunks together just like we used to when we were kids. Things still looked pretty bleak, but I was feeling generally more positive about my prospects.

I hated Donald for hurting my sister, and wanted to find some way to punish him—plus, I would need something to keep me occupied for the next several years or so, right? There are worse ways to spend your time than designing an elaborate revenge plot.