“Elise—” I began.

“I’m fine,” she said, shooting me a look that shut me up.

Halfway through dinner, Evan got a call from his girlfriend, Lara, and had to step outside.

“Those two break up like every other week,” Jack said, shaking his head.

Elise glanced out with interest at the parking lot where Evan was sitting on the curb hunched over his phone, clearly anxious.

When he came back inside, he sat back down next to Jack, looking distressed.

“Everything okay?” Jack asked like he already knew the answer.

“It’s over. Like really over this time,” Evan said.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said with a sigh. “But you say that every time—maybe it’s not really over?”

Evan shook his head. “She’s already with some other guy. Apparently for a few weeks now.”

“What?” Jack looked genuinely shocked.

“I think I’m going to head home early,” Evan said, avoiding all of our gazes.

“Yeah, of course,” Jack said. “Remy can give me a ride back later.”

“Wait,” Elise said, reaching across the table to catch his wrist. “Don’t go. I know just what you need.”

• • •

Not all of the Deadly Vipers were available on such short notice, but there were more than enough people for Elise’s idea.

“I don’t know,” Evan said after she pitched it to him. “It seems like a lot.”

“I mean, she just did that to you—cheated on you and then humiliated you. Doesn’t that seem like a lot to you? What’d she say exactly?”

“She said she was bored of walking all over me,” Evan said, flushed with embarrassment.

Elise shook her head sadly. “You have to have some respect for yourself. You have to stand up for yourself when no one else will.”

Her words took me back to the night we watched Kill Bill for the first time. It’s not just about revenge. It’s having respect for yourself. It’s believing you don’t deserve all the shitty things that people do to you. It’s believing that even if you get knocked down, there will be a day of reckoning. There’ll be a day you’ll rise out of the ashes and destroy the people who tried to destroy you.

“People are always saying you have to let it go, you have to move on, you have to focus on yourself, forget about them. Because success is the best revenge,” Elise said. “But that’s total bullshit. You know what’s the best revenge? Actual revenge.”

Evan paused to think, then nodded. “Okay.”

Jack shot me a confused look. “What’s Elise planning?”

“I don’t know,” I said, a little worried about what she had in mind. Her plans were so unpredictable, anywhere from completely benign to destructive. Whatever it was, I hoped it stayed on the tame side.

First, we stopped by Publix to buy five large cans of tuna.

“Salted or unsalted?” Evan asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” she answered. “As long as it’s in oil.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jack said when Evan and Elise were ahead of us in the checkout line. “Have you guys done this before?” He frowned.