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“I thought you heard me,” I say. “Maybe Mom’s right, and you do need your hearing checked.”

He’s looking at me. Very clearly looking at me. But the crease between his eyes deepens.

“Hello there,” he says carefully. “Can I help you?”

I blink, and my heart starts to thud. I want to tell myself he’s teasing. A typical dad prank, right? Only, if shooters are my bogeyman, this is my true nightmare. The one I have at least once a month. Where I’m forgotten. Where I go home, and my family doesn’t know who I am.

“It’s me, Dad. Ellie.”

He keeps staring at me, as if I’m not talking.

“Hello?” I say. “Dad?”

No reaction. Then his head tilts, his smile forced.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.

“You can’t hear me, can you?” I say.

The door whooshes behind him, and I glance up to see a woman, slender and strong, wearing a jogging suit, her ash-blond hair in a ponytail, earbuds in.

“Oh,” she says, startling as she sees me. “Hello there.”

“When did you start jogging again?” I ask. I remember Mom used to do that, before she hurt her knee.

Hurt her knee running to me the day of the shooting. Someone said a little girl had been outside, and Mom glanced out and saw me trapped under Dr. Dabrowski and tried to run for me, tripping over a chair someone knocked over, permanently injured her knee, no more jogging.

My heart beats harder. And my mother says nothing. Just looks at me quizzically.

“Bradley?” she says to my dad.

“She doesn’t seem to be able to talk,” he says, his voice low. “Maybe some kind of accident?”

“How did she get here?”

He looks around, and then spots the car at the curb. Mom’s gaze follows, and she gives a little gasp.

“Isn’t that your old car?” she says.

“It just looks like it, doesn’t it? The one I had … fifteen years ago?” Dad shakes it off and turns to me. “You seem to be in some kind of trouble, miss. Is there someone I can call?”

“You,” I say, barely able to force out the word. “You’re my emergency contact, Dad.”

A thought hits, and I scramble for my phone, finding it in my back pocket. I pull it out, and it’s fine, undamaged. I hit the screen, and it lights up, but when I lift it, the message comes back:

Face not recognized.

I hit the code, and it vibrates, telling me I got it wrong. I squeeze my shaking hands and try again. Another buzz.

“It’s okay,” Dad says. “Let’s just get you inside, and we’ll call for help.”

“I’m not sure we should do that, Bradley.” Mom moves to block the entrance. “Miss? How about you just sit right here while I call someone.”

Call the police. That’s what she means.

A sound comes, from deep in the house. A man’s chuckle.

The bartender.