We sat in the back of his car, exhausted, shivering, and stupidly relieved. The heater rattled to life, and with it, our faith in people. He waved away our gratitude like it embarrassed him, insisting it was nothing, that anyone would have done the same. We drove home wrapped in the glow of a simple, decent act, telling the story for years as proof that the world wasn’t all bad.

Time moved on. Then one night the news froze us in place. That same easy grin, those same eyes, now under harsh fluorescent light and a headline naming him a predator of the dark: robberies, assaults, carefully chosen victims on empty roads. Our miracle ride had been a coin toss we never knew we’d flipped. We hadn’t survived because we were smart or special. We survived because—for whatever reason—his hunger skipped us.