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V aguely hungry as it neared dinner time, Ginny stared half-heartedly into her kitchen cupboard.

It offered a box of crackers, a bag of dried apple rings, and some instant oats.

Her small fridge and freezer weren’t much better.

She wished she could do a grocery run but was terrified to leave her house.

With a dude that evil, it could be the last time she ever saw it.

She pulled out the crackers, then stood there holding the box unopened in her hand as she stared off into space.

She’d just placed a stale cracker on her tongue like she was partaking in private communion when her doorbell rang. Was he back with the police or something?

Padding the few steps between her kitchen and her front door, she peered out the glass to see her sister and brother-in-law beaming in at her.

Grant held up a large glass dish covered with foil. “Hungry for lasagna?”

Dumbstruck by their sudden appearance, especially given that she’d never told them where she lived, Ginny opened the door. “Monique told you where I am?”

“It was more of a rant than a telling,” Grant said. He squeezed past her in the narrow entryway and headed straight for the kitchen. “Cute place! Very you.”

Sadie stepped inside too. She rested a hand on Ginny’s shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. “Sounds like you’ll probably be a shut-in for a while, so we volunteer to be your personal shoppers!”

Grant slipped past them and jogged back to their car.

Ginny was still a little confused. “Did Monique ask you to help me?”

“Ha!” Sadie said, her ice blue eyes flashing.

“She told us not to get involved. But, unlike her, Grant and I don't have a…” She made air quotes as she used her acting skills to imitate Monique’s tone to perfection.

“…professional conflict of interest.” Ginny sighed, and Sadie gave her a quick hug.

“Oh, don't let it bother you. You know her—she feels responsible for everybody all the time, and especially for you and me. In her heart, she’s proud of how you take care of yourself, and she’ll do whatever she can to protect you. ”

Grant returned with a full shopping bag pinched under each arm. “We grabbed a bunch of ready-to-eat meals and, since we didn’t know what else you might need, some basics like toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo.”

Ginny blinked away happy tears. “This is so nice of you.”

“You text or call me right away with anything else,” Sadie said. She rubbed her hands together like an excited little kid. “Now, show us your house!”

Ginny’s heart swelled at the way Sadie had emphasized the word “your,” and doubled in size at the prospect of giving her first home tour.

They “ooh’d” and “ahh’d” at all of it, even though it was half the size of theirs and probably worth a twentieth. The lovely dinner of wine, lasagna, and salad they enjoyed around Ginny’s kitchen booth nearly burst her heart with joy.

The next morning, just before the sun’s first light crept over the windowsill to the right of her bed, Ginny woke groggily. Despite her perfect evening, she’d spent a miserable night waking from nightmare after nightmare in which she’d lost, broken, or carelessly ruined precious things.

But as her mind cleared of the unpleasant, sleepy cobwebs, it dawned on her that this final waking hadn’t been from a nightmare at all—it was from noise.

Music, to be exact. She scrunched up her face, confused.

Someone was playing the Rolling Stones song “Under My Thumb” so loudly she could make out every twangy word and every twangy guitar pluck even with all the windows in her house shut tight.

It was so loud that the song’s incessant beat made the springs in her mattress pulse.

This made no sense, because she hadn’t had a neighbor for the past two years, and the last one she’d had, sweet old Mrs. Donovan, would have picked front yard daisies in her birthday suit before playing the Rolling Stones at any decibel level whatsoever.

“What the…,” Ginny mumbled as she flung back her quilt and swung her feet to the floor.

She couldn’t even tell where to go looking for the source of the song, as it seemed to come from everywhere.

Peering south through her bedroom window, she spied nothing but the gravel- and weed-filled lot that had stood in as her “neighbor” since the day she’d first arrived.

To the west was the backyard, empty save for a tall and scraggly oak tree.

Increasingly annoyed, she pushed her feet into her mint green slippers and grabbed up her baby blue robe from the end of her bed.

Tucking her phone into its fuzzy pocket, she walked across the hall to peer out the window of the second, smaller bedroom to the north, which she used as an office and area for small repairs.

There was Mrs. Donovan’s dingy, paint-peeling, white house, just as she’d left it when she’d gone to live with her son in Phoenix.

There were no lights on inside, let alone indications that anyone was in there enjoying a pre-dawn rock concert.

The song ended and Ginny breathed a sigh of relief, but then it immediately started up again – the exact same song at the exact same deafening pitch.

Ginny wrapped her robe around her middle more tightly. She stomped past the kitchen and living room to the front door, which she unlocked and flung open. Hoping to better pinpoint the source of the noise pollution, she stepped out onto the porch.

Immediately, she was hit by a cacophony of barking! It sounded as if a pack of fifty feral Dobermans were barreling toward her. She squeaked in terror before beating a hasty retreat into her house and slamming the door.

Heart pumping madly, she ran to the bay window in the kitchen and stared out. There, behind the chain link fence that surrounded the empty lot to the south, were three enormous and ferocious dogs.

Bark, bark, bark! went the dogs.

Twang, twang, twang! went the song.

“What is going on?” Ginny said out loud in an attempt to hear her own thoughts over the din. “And who would just leave dogs there like that?”

Moments later, she spotted a possible answer to both questions. Nico’s fancy black car was back—directly in front of her house. Was he responsible for the music and dogs? Was he trying to torture and terrify her away from her house ? Even from a bully like him, this was hard to believe.

Hands shaking with fury, she opened her front door by a crack.

She considered braving the walk to the street, but the dogs once again went into barking overdrive.

True, they were behind a fence, but it wasn’t a very tall fence.

Given their hideous snarls and slobbery, bared teeth, Ginny didn’t feel at all comfortable testing their jumping abilities.

She certainly didn’t trust that brute of a man to lift a finger to save her if the dogs attacked.

Returning to her bay window, she glared at Nico, who, seated comfortably in his car with the window rolled down, gave her an exaggeratedly friendly wave. He proceeded to roll up his window and then pick up his phone.

Her phone rang, and she yanked it from her pocket. “How did you get this number?” she yelled over the racket.

“Receptionist at the realty company,” he said, then slipped into a sickly-sweet tone. “Oh, hello. Could I get the number of the wonderful young lady who does your house cleaning? I just want to thank her for her hard work and honesty.”

Ginny’s teeth ground together so hard she risked liquifying them. “What do you think you’re up to?”

“What do you think you’re up to?”

Her face scrunched in fury. “Turn this music off and get these dangerous dogs out of here!”

“Gee. If you don’t like the neighborhood, why not get yourself out of here?”

“Seriously. This can’t be legal,” Ginny spat. “There are dog and noise ordinances.”

“Oh, you want me to follow rules when you won’t? Do the rules apply to everyone but you?”

“You lost the rule you were supposed to learn in kindergarten – finders keepers. Also known as you snooze, you lose.”

The man had the audacity to laugh. “I don’t think you’ll be snoozing much anymore.”

“Seriously, you can’t just do this.”

“Ah, but I can. I can play this song—whose message speaks to my heart and soul—as loud as I want. After you call in a noise ordinance, I can still play it for sixteen glorious hours a day and just slightly softer for the remaining eight. By then it will be so burned into your brain, it’ll be ringing in your head all night long anyway.

These dogs howl at night too. At least, that’s what the shelters warned me about when I asked for their least adoptable dogs.

” Nico honked his car horn lightly, and it sent the dogs into a renewed frenzy.

“But this will all go away, and you’ll be a rich woman if you just agree to do the right thing and leave.

Buy yourself a real fixer-upper instead of stealing my tear-downer. ”

The blood climbed into Ginny’s face till her ears pounded with it.

Her only wish was to sprint down her sidewalk, rip every bumper and mirror off that man’s car and reattach them, using unnecessary degrees of force, to various parts of his body.

Forget Roman antiquities—he’d be a deconstructionist modern art Picasso by the time she was done with him!

She would title it, “The Audacity of Man.” She might have even traded the house for that opportunity.

But as he was protected by squatter-eating dogs, she was stuck inside.

Suddenly, she burned hot as a volcano. Ripping open her robe and tossing it aside, she half-climbed, half-jumped awkwardly over the booth until she stood inside the bay window, which was just tall enough for her to fit.

She pushed her tank top- and shorts-clad body against the cool glass, arms outstretched.

She knew she must look deranged, but she didn’t care.

She preferred it. He needed to know what he was dealing with.

Ginny Heppner didn’t just not give up easily—she didn’t give up at all .

“You will not win,” she screamed into the phone. “You will NOT!”

Maniacal laughter assaulted her in reply as she watched his car drive off down the street.

She continued to stand prostrate against the glass like a squished windshield bug for a few moments more.

Bark, bark, bark! Twang, twang, twang! Bark, bark, bark!

Peeling herself off the glass, she lowered herself and sat on the booth bench she had re-built herself from reclaimed wood and a scrounged collection of miscellaneous screws.

It was just music.

It was just dogs.

Prisoners of war had survived much worse for years and years at a time.

The real problem was the constant knowledge that that man , the most aggravating man the universe had ever made the mistake of assembling, was the one doing this to her. With the entirety of her frazzled heart, she made herself a promise: he would NOT win.

She pressed her right palm against her ear to dim the song and the barking while, with her left, she called Sadie.

It was time for a little personal shopping.