The Hound

By rights, the late-spring morning should have been warm but breezy, a day of golden light and the faint scent of flowers and freshly cut grass in the air. But by 10, the sun was already fat and blazing.

With no wind, the dust hung in the air, suspended in beams of light, and the refraction of each particle cast a surreal hue. The effect was exactly like entering an attic that had been shut up for years: that feeling of being caught in time, held in the in-between spaces.

It was cursed weather, foreboding weather, and even though the sun was hot and bright overhead in its canopy of blue-blue sky, a shiver ran down Natasha's spine. She reached to fiddle with the knob of the van's air conditioner. A blast of hot air, like warm breath, exhaled from the vent.

She turned the knob back down and shifted her weight against the door, acutely aware of the way sweat pooled at the small of her back, the dampness of her jeans as the seams climbed uncomfortably up her inner thigh. She did not mention that the van was overdue for maintenance, that the AC system had been out of coolant for weeks now. Not now, not when the atmosphere was already so tense.