“You okay?” I asked Elise when the bell rang.

“Yeah, of course,” she said with a nearly imperceptible nod. Not here. Then, before everyone left for class, she called us all together. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Uh-oh,” Jae said, “that can be dangerous.”

She smiled. “I think we should quit while we’re ahead.”

“What do you mean?” Evan asked.

“The Deadly Vipers, the pranks. I’m done.” Then she walked away, leaving all of us in shock.

SATURDAY // AUGUST 26 // DAY 351

51.

“I want to pull one more prank,” Elise announced one night, two weeks into the school year. She’d kept her word and didn’t organize any more late-night missions. Everyone was confused, but Elise just said she’d grown bored of them—until now. “One more prank. Just you and me.”

“What? But you said you were done,” I said, instantly filled with dread. I believed her when she announced it on the first day of school.

“With the Deadly Vipers, yes,” she said. “This would be just the two of us, though.” We were in my basement, the TV on in the background.

“When?”

“Tonight,” she said, and for the first time in weeks, I saw her smile, and it was so good seeing even a glimpse of her old self.

“This will be the very last one,” she said, that glint in her eyes. “Promise. After this, I won’t care if we never do another one. I mean it.”

I was apprehensive. She was always talking about delivering justice, righting wrongs. She prided herself on her anger. She carefully nursed it like a small flame within her, never letting it die. And now she was saying she was going to let it go after one more mission? I didn’t know if I could trust her to really leave her anger behind. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to prank my dad.”

“What?” I stared at her, dumbfounded.

“He’s out on bail and back in Chattanooga.” She spoke calmly, like she’d thought all of it through. “He never put our house up for sale. I bet he’s there right now.”

“But—” My eyes searched her face wildly.

“All those times over the summer, I helped get justice for anyone who asked for it. Over the last year, I did it for you, for Jae, for Evan. It’s my turn now. And it’s not even about justice this time. It’s about closure,” she said, her voice emotional and uneven. “I need closure.”

“I don’t know,” I said. It’d been three weeks since she’d been hospitalized. She’d only just started to breathe without any pain. “I think we should just let the police deal with him. I know you’re upset, but—” The thought of going anywhere near him was terrifying.

“No.” She seemed to deflate. “I’m not upset. That’s not why I want to do this.”

“This isn’t a good idea. You’re not thinking straight,” I said. “You don’t really want to do this.” I was pleading with her.