A neighbor helps her.

The taxi finally pulled up in front of Magi's dilapidated building. She had her hand on the handle, ready to escape, to run barefoot and half-naked toward the relative safety of her doorway.

But the click of the central locking activating paralyzed her. The driver had locked the doors.

“So soon, gorgeous?” the man said, turning in his seat to look directly at her. His breath smelled of cheap booze and cigarettes. “The ride was so... pleasant. Don’t you want to invite me up? For coffee, of course.” His smile was a lewd smirk that left no room for doubt about his intentions.

“Open the door,” Magi demanded, trying to keep her voice from cracking with panic. “Right now.”

“Or what?” he scoffed, unbuckling his seatbelt and moving clumsily toward the back seat. “Are you gonna scream? Look at you, babe. Who’s going to believe a little slut in a thong who got into my taxi alone?”

He was getting closer. Magi recoiled against the window, searching for something to defend herself with, but she only had her empty hands. Despair closed her throat. She was trapped.

Suddenly, sharp, authoritative knocks resonated on the driver's window. Knock, knock, knock.

They weren’t knocks of uncontrolled fury, but of a calm and icy demand.

The driver stopped, startled.

“What the hell...?”

Magi turned her head. Outside, standing under the yellowish light of the streetlamp, with a rigid posture and an expression of absolute disdain, was Mr. Evans.

He wore his dark silk robe peeking out from under a poorly buttoned light trench coat, as if he had come down after seeing something from his window that belonged to him being threatened. His thick glasses gleamed, reflecting the street light and hiding his eyes, but his jaw was tense.

The driver rolled down the window a few inches, irritated.

“What do you want, grandpa? Beat it.”

“Open the door,” Evans said. His voice didn't rise. It was a low, monotone tone, the tone of a man not used to asking, but to commanding. “Immediately.”

“And who are you?” the driver mocked, though his smile faltered before the disturbing stillness of the old man. “Her pimp?”

“I am the man who memorized your license plate while coming down the stairs,” Evans replied with a calmness that chilled the blood far more than any scream. “And I am the one who will ensure the police find you before you can start that engine again if you don't unlock that door in three seconds.”

Evans leaned in slightly, bringing his face close to the window.

“She comes with me. And you disappear. Now.”

The driver looked at Evans, then at Magi. There was something about the old man’s presence, a palpable darkness and a perverse authority that surpassed his own cheap thug vulgarity. He wasn’t a hero defending a damsel; he was an owner claiming an object.

Cursing under his breath, the driver hit the lock with a sharp movement.

The click was the sweetest sound Magi had ever heard in her life.

She pushed the door and threw herself out, stumbling onto the cold pavement, almost falling at Evans' feet.

The taxi sped off with a screech of tires, moving away at full speed, as if the driver wanted to escape the old man's gaze.

The silence of the night fell over them. Magi was still trembling, hugging herself to cover her nakedness, the adrenaline leaving her body and leaving her exhausted.

Evans didn’t help her up immediately. He stood looking down at her, his eyes scanning her half-naked body, the thong, her skin goosebumped from the cold and fear. There wasn’t the warm concern of a savior in his gaze, but the critical annoyance of someone who finds their possession mishandled.

“How careless, Magi,” he finally murmured, clicking his tongue. “I told you I was waiting for you. I don't like what is mine arriving... manhandled by just anyone.”

He took off his trench coat and draped it over her shoulders. The fabric was heavy and smelled of mothballs and his old cologne, enveloping her not like a hug, but like a net.

“Th-thank you...” she managed to stammer, clinging to the borrowed garment, confused by terror and relief.

“Let’s go,” he ordered, ignoring her gratitude. “You are in no condition to be alone.”

He guided her inside the building, but not toward the stairs that led to her floor. He took her directly to his door, apartment 3B. He unlocked it and ushered her in.

The apartment was in shadows, warm and smelling of old wax and books.

“Sit,” he indicated, pointing to the dark leather sofa.

Magi obeyed, shrinking into a corner of the couch. Evans' trench coat was the only thing covering her; underneath, she was still naked save for the tiny thong. She felt the cold leather of the sofa against her bare legs where the coat fell open.

Evans disappeared into the kitchen and returned minutes later with two steaming cups and a small first-aid kit.

“Coffee. Black. You need to warm up,” he said, placing the cup on the small table in front of her.

Then, he sat on the edge of the sofa, uncomfortably close. He opened the kit.

“Your knees are dirty. And scraped,” he observed, soaking a cotton ball in disinfectant. “And your feet...”

Without asking permission, he took one of Magi's legs and placed it on his lap. The touch of his dry, cold hands against her hot skin made her shudder.

“Don't move,” he warned, wiping the cotton over a scrape on her knee.

Magi clutched the trench coat against her chest, watching as he cleaned her. He didn’t offer her clothes. He didn’t tell her to cover her legs. He cleaned the street dirt from her skin with a possessive meticulousness, pausing at every mark, evaluating the damage.

“That animal...” Evans murmured, more to himself, as he cleaned a grease stain on her ankle. “He doesn't know how to handle fine materials.”

When he finished, he closed the kit, but he didn't remove his hand from her leg immediately. He left it there for a second, a dead and claiming weight.

“Tonight you stay here,” he announced, standing up. “Your door isn't safe. And you... you need watching.”

Magi nodded, too exhausted to argue, too scared to return to her solitude.

“Where...?” she began to ask, her voice a thread.

“You will sleep in my bed,” he said naturally. “It’s the safest room. I’ll take the sofa.”

He went to get a blanket and a pillow for himself, and then pointed to the bedroom.

“Go. The bed is clean. Try to rest.”

Magi walked toward the bedroom, dragging the trench coat that was huge on her, feeling Evans' gaze pinned to her naked back until she closed the door.

She got into Evans' bed, between sheets that smelled of him, without taking off the trench coat, using it like a second protective skin over her nakedness.

She didn't sleep well. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the taxi driver. But then, she would hear Evans' slow, shuffling footsteps on the other side of the door, patrolling his living room, and a strange sense of safety washed over her.

She was safe from the outside world. But she was locked in with the wolf. And that night, under Evans' roof, Magi understood that her safety had a price that he, sooner or later, would come to collect.