That night, as I lay in bed struggling to fall asleep, I just wanted to figure out a way to help Elise, to get her to put an end to the pranks. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if there was anything that would make her stop.

WEDNESDAY // MAY 10 // DAY 243

39.

Elise loved playing judge, jury, executioner. I watched from the sidelines as the Deadly Vipers—Elise, Julie, Madi, Jae, and now Evan—spent our lunch hours debating who their next target should be. I was technically a Viper, but I stopped giving any input for the most part.

There were times I didn’t know how to talk to her anymore. “Hey, how are you?” I’d asked, the first day back from spring break.

“What do you mean?” She gave me a weird look. “Things are fine,” she said. “I’m fine.” She hated being asked how she was, but every time I did, she acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about. It almost felt like she regretted telling me in the first place. She never brought it up again, refused to even acknowledge anything was wrong. But it was always there—this tension between us.

Things only got worse as the pranks took off. At first the targets ranged from teachers with a history of misconduct to the better-known bullies at school, like Ethan and George from math, the assholes who taunted weaker students for sport—at least when Elise wasn’t around.

The administration and school security investigated the Vipers’s spring break prank on Mr. Dawkins. But the investigation didn’t result in discovery, the exact opposite—Dawkins quietly resigned. What was once an open secret had been fully exposed through a single trashed classroom and Riverside had to take action. The school never contacted the police and seemed to end the investigation the moment he left. They probably didn’t want to draw even more attention to the matter.

Emboldened, Elise charged full speed ahead with her plans. There were more mice in bedrooms, tuna oil in the ventilation. They slashed tires, egged cars, filled balloons with vinegar and food coloring, then ambushed targets. She was always devising new ways to fuck with people. She wanted to push the limit, or maybe she wanted to find out if there was one, and she grew bolder and bolder each time they escaped capture. After Dawkins, the Vipers were always careful to take action off school grounds to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves.

I went to the first few missions but soon began making excuses every time they had another. The pranks had been thrilling at the beginning but they’d lost their appeal. On some level, I really did understand that Elise needed to take control, deliver her brand of justice, but it was also exhausting always raging against the world.

When I wasn’t with Elise, I was with Jack. As I started to spend more and more time with him, I had less time for her. We went on hikes with Lola, to the lake, for rides on his motorcycle, my arms wrapped around him tight. I told myself I was running toward him and not away from her, but maybe that was just a convenient lie.