I must've died and gone to Hell.

The marquee display on Main Street reads: 117F. Local news calls it a record-breaking heat dome, advises everyone to stay indoors unless someone is dying. As if the whole world isn't on its last legs.

So here I am. Charging along the sidewalk directly for the house at the end of the block. Because some asshole left their pit bull locked in the back of a vermilion Ford Bronco with the windows rolled up. A major No No where I come from.

Soon as I hit the driveway (ribbons of heat rising like evil spirits), the dog starts barking her head off at me. Really going at it, like she's got a vendetta. I wait to see if this draws the owner's attention, but no one shows.

"Okay, easy, girl. I'll get you out of there."

It's so hot, my saliva has evaporated. My tongue is a kiln-dried brick. The dog better conserve her energy before she gives herself a stroke. I make my way up the splintering steps and press the button on the Ring camera, but no light appears. Broken. I pound on the door. Wait. Knock again, hard enough to rattle the door in its frame.

"Hey! You left your dog in the truck! It's hot enough to cook the warts off a bullfrog out here—you lost your damn mind?!"

Nothing.

Fantastic.

I look around for something I can use to break the window. Along the wall is a wicker chair missing one of its legs; someone has propped it up using a forty-pound kettlebell. That'll do. The iron sears into my grip as I heft it up, causing the chair to tip over.

That sets the dog off all over again. Barking until the cords stand out on her neck and foam flies from her teeth. I approach the rear of the Bronco. She snaps at the air inches from the glass. If she doesn't back off, she's going to get hurt when it shatters.

"Be a good girl and SIT!" I yell at her.

Reflex makes her haunches start to lower, but it isn't enough to overcome her defensive stance. She keeps her snout pointed directly at me, ears flat against her skull. Then she notices the object in my hands, which gives her pause. Backs up a step. Good enough.

I swing the kettlebell and smack it sideways into the cab window. It cracks and spiderwebs. The dog's bark loses a note of confidence; she skitters back against the opposite door, snarling. I hit the window again. It pops like a can of Pringles, peels out of the frame as I push it in with the weight.

"C'mon, girl. You can fit. Come on out of there."

She doesn't budge. Long red lines on her chest and rump suggest someone has struck her with something—a clothes hanger, maybe, or a wire. Her eyes tell me she's not going to let anything like that happen again.

"It's okay, Suge. You don't wanna stay in that stinky old truck, do ya?"

No tag on her collar, but if she were mine, I'd name her Sugar.

The Bronco's interior is a convection oven. Sweat stings my eyes. Damn dog better hurry up before it's me that gets roasted alive. I reach in through the cab window and grab the handle of the rear door. It singes my hand, hotter than a cast-iron stove.

"Gah!"

Suge's growl erupts into another full-blown bark-a-thon.

"Yeah yeah, I know. I'm an idiot."

I take off my shirt, soaked through with sweat, and wrap it around my hand before trying the handle again. The door pops open. I step back to give her some room.

She still won't come. No way I can reach in there and pull her out by force, not without being gnawed like a chew bone.

"Well, you've got some fresh air, at least. Take a breather."

I put the kettlebell back on the porch. Spot a steel water bowl under the awning. There's a spigot on the side of the house; I use my shirt-clad hand to crank it on, let the water run for a bit to cool off before I fill it for her.

She finally quits barking. Praise the god of dogs. Then, another miracle: she slinks out of the Bronco and limps to her bowl, which I move to the shade. She sniffs the water, suspicious. Laps up her first sip. Then another. Then dips her whole snout in and guzzles, slurp-slurping the sweet relief until the bowl is dry again. I pour her another. She gives me the once-over, reassessing me. Maybe I'm not so bad. Still growls if I get too close, though, a reminder that her trust isn't so easily won.

"Where's your owner, Suge? They in there...?"

I nod at the house with its shoddy siding covered in kudzu. She bolts suddenly, disappears through the gated fence around back. I hear the thwap of a doggy door. I hear a sound that tugs at my heartstrings—Sugar whining. Not just whining, but crying. In serious distress.

"Yeah, kinda figured that," I say.

I knock on the front door one more time, just for good measure. It's unlocked.

"Hello?" I call out, poking my head into the dingy foyer.

A smarter man would call the cops and beat it before he's nabbed for breaking and entering. But what's one more trumped-up charge if it saves a life? My lawyer can sort out the details.

Inside, it's stifling. Not a whiff of AC, and the smell is horrendous, mothballs soaked in year-old piss.

"I'm entering your residence. Out of concern for your well-being, okay? Do not shoot me."

The only reply is the ticking of a clock somewhere and Suge's whimper. There's luggage piled in the hallway like someone's about to go on vacation permanently. A man, based on the style of bags. Pictures line the walls, coastlines in Nova Scotia and Norway, but no people. No family.

In the kitchen, I find him crumpled on the floor against the cabinets. Middle-aged white dude, bargain bin Philip Seymour Hoffman with more jowls and less hair. Seems to share his look-alike's affinity for hard drugs—a burnt spoon lies next to him, right arm tied off with a rubber tube, hypodermic needle jutting out from under the cabinet kick space. His face is flushed, beet-red. I check his wrist for a pulse—there isn't one.

Suge nuzzles his kneecap, big brown eyes pleading with me. Help him.

"He's gone, sweetheart. We're too late."

The guy's been dead maybe four hours, judging by the foamy lips and stiff jaw, but his arms are still loose. Sugar is lucky she survived this long. She whines in denial, pawing at his leg.

I start to piece together what happened. The packed bags, the dog treats scattered near an open duffel...He wasn't just getting high. He was about to high-tail it out of town, and bring Sugar with him. Running from someone. The needle and spoon tell me he needed one last hit before the road, something to steady his nerves. But the heat got to him faster than usual, or maybe it was laced with fentanyl—what they call a "hot shot". Either way, he nodded out and overheated while Sugar waited in that truck.

On the kitchen table, mixed in with the junk mail, I spot a legal notice with a familiar seal. The city's seal. Already open, so I'm not committing any crimes by reading it—something about "asset forfeiture proceedings". So it wasn't his dealer he was running from.

"Were you trying to save her?" I ask the corpse.

Can't help but notice the leather wallet sticking out of his pocket. I grab it and check his license. Antony Duncan. I leave the two Benjamins in the billfold—that's the old me. The me that did three years for knocking over a credit union, but has since learned the error of his ways. I'm surprised a mainliner has that much cash on hand, is all. Antony played it tight.

Well, until he didn't.

On his lap, his cell phone lights up. The cracked screen fills with text messages from a contact saved as DAWN HELLSPAWN.

You better not have taken my dog.

Answer me, you junkie piece of shit! You have no idea what you've done, do you? I'm about to go full John Wick on your ass.

ETA 3 minutes.

"You seem nice," I say to the phone. Sugar's ears twitch, reminding me that I'm talking out loud with no one around. A habit I picked up in solitary.

The temperature's making me decompensate. I hear the wheeze of brakes at the curb, and the click of approaching heels, but I don't panic. I don't do anything. I wait.

"Who're you?" she demands from the hallway.

Her voice is delicate but stern. Tailored suit, peep-toe shoes, white hair in a professional bun. She removes her designer sunglasses and studies my torso covered in tattoos. Looks right through me, like we're not of the same species. Like I'm garbage that tumbled in off the street.

"A concerned neighbor. And who the hell are you, ma'am?"

She's got a lanyard around her neck identifying her as the city's comptroller—Dawn Haggard—but I pretend not to notice.

"I'm the master of this dog."

Sugar goes quiet. The fur on the nape of her neck stands up. She hovers over Antony protectively; it's not him she's scared of—her eyes dart back and forth between the woman's face and her long, sharp fingernails. About the same length as the gouges in Sugar's flank.

"Nah, I don't think so."

"Excuse me?"

"I think ol' Suge here has made her mind up where she belongs. And it sure as shit ain't with you."

Dawn's face tightens, not used to being spoken to so plainly. She forces a smile. The smuggest look I've ever seen.

"You have no idea what you're meddling with here," she says, stepping into the kitchen like she owns the place. She whistles sharply, then snaps and points at the floor next to her shoe, probably worth more than six months of my salary. "Heel!"

Sugar jerks like she's been yanked by a leash. Old training dies hard, but she fights it. Dawn tries again, firmer. "HEEL, Edna. Come to Mama!"

The dog stands up, trembling. But instead of going to her former owner, she pads over to me. Licks my palm with a tongue still warm from the heat.

"Edna? Jesus Christ, lady." I shake my head. "Based on that choice alone, you don't deserve her."

"It was my grandmother's name, you—you shut up! No one asked you, did they? I rescued her!" Dawn's voice cracks with something bordering on sanctimony. "I brought her into my home, gave her everything. I trained her myself."

"Trained her with your fingernails, looks like."

Dawn's cheeks are florid. "Some dogs need firm correction. I don't subscribe to these delusional modern notions of positive reinforcement. That's how you ruin them." The way she snarls at me, I can tell she thinks I'm a dog in need of correction, too.

"Man, who hurt you?" I crouch down next to Sugar to rub her ears, which makes her press against my leg. "I'll tell you one thing I've noticed about both people and animals: they never forget who does them harm."

"You're hysterical. Let's cut the crap, okay? Edna belongs to me, I have her paperwork. But you—" she looks me up and down with obvious disdain, "—you've got the look of an ex-con, and you're trespassing on private property. Where there happens to be a dead body. Should I call your parole officer?"

"Go ahead. But while you're at it, maybe explain to him why 'Edna' has fresh whip marks and why your buddy Antony here was trying to smuggle her out of town."

Dawn loses a fraction of composure. "Tony was a drug addict who kidnapped my dog. Whatever narrative you're trying to—"

"Is that why you sent him death threats? And why your dog's more afraid of you than she was of a stranger with a kettlebell?"

Through the open door, I see Dawn's behemoth of an assistant emerge from a white Lincoln Continental. He's built like a refrigerator, sweating through his cheap suit.

"Marcus, get in here," Dawn calls. "We have a situation."

Marcus squeezes through the doorway, sees what she meant by a situation, and goes pale.

"Ma'am, I told you I'm really not good with dogs."

"I'll handle her. I need you to remove this man from the premises."

But Marcus is staring at Antony's corpse like it might get up and walk. "Ma'am, with all due respect, we're already under investigation for the shelter funding thing. If there's a dead person involved—"

"What investigation?" I ask, although I'm starting to get the picture.

Dawn shoots Marcus a look that could freeze the Atlantic. "Nothing that concerns you."

But it does concern me. It should concern everyone. "Comptroller," I read off her lanyard. "That's budget oversight, right? You're a fiscal watchdog. And here's Antony ready to hit the pavement on the hottest day in the history of this city. So either he stole from you, or he knew too much about who you were stealing from."

"You've seen too many movies. And it's too stuffy in here for this, I can't."

"Look, I get it. Federal grants are tempting; that's a helluva score." Sugar stays glued to my side, panting. "Guessing that's how you two crossed paths, huh? Funds allocated for a new animal shelter that mysteriously never got built, something like that?"

"You don't know what you're talking about." But the way her jaw tightens says otherwise. She pings from me to Marcus to Sugar, and I can see her mind working like that Confused Math Lady meme. She needs someone to blame for this mess, and I'm the obvious patsy. "Marcus, call 911. Tell them we have a break-in in progress. Armed and dangerous."

"I'm not armed."

"You will be, once Marcus plants something on you."

Marcus shifts uncomfortably. "Ma'am. No."

"I beg your pardon? You're saying no to me? I guess that's NO to your family's health insurance then, eh Marcus?"

The threat hangs in the air like smog. Marcus reaches into his jacket.

"Easy there, big guy," I say. "Your boss is about to blow up the whole spot over a dog who doesn't even like her. But you're smarter than that, I can tell. You know that when the feds come sniffing around for those funds, they'll want to talk to everyone involved."

Marcus's hand freezes. Then he withdraws a checkbook and pen. "The city wishes to thank you for your bravery."

Dawn's eyes turn into slits. "You're paying him off?"

"Think of it as reward money for saving a missing pet. Your missing pet, ma'am."

There's something not right about being handed a check with a dead guy in the room. I take it to see how much Sugar is worth to them. Three hundred and fifty dollars.

"City's seen better days, huh?"

"Whatever Marcus just handed you, it's far superior to being arrested for violating your parole and getting sent back to prison, is it not? So take it and go."

I reach down to borrow Antony's lighter. Set the check on fire and throw it in the sink, where it curls up in a plume of smoke.

"Oh," says Marcus. "Bit dramatic."

Dawn is shaking now, whether from rage or fear I can't tell. Sugar doesn't like the smell of smoke and starts growling low in her throat.

"This isn't over," Dawn says, but her voice has lost its authority. "I'll see you in court. Both of you."

"Looking forward to it," I say. "Should be interesting testimony."

Sirens wail in the distance, getting closer. Someone must have called it in already, probably when I broke the Bronco's window. No good deed, and the road to Hell, and so on.

Dawn straightens her suit, trying to regain some dignity. "Come, Edna. We're leaving."

But Sugar has made her choice. She looks back at Antony one more time, like she's saying goodbye, then pads toward the back door.

I follow her lead, admiring the new bounce in her step. She knows it, and I know it. Time is running out. Even the magnolia trees have given up the ghost, wilting like plastic in a microwave.

"What do you think, girl? How's New Hampshire sound?"

Sugar glances over her shoulder at the house and the Bronco in the driveway. Like she knew from the beginning where this was headed. Then she trains her gaze in the direction of my apartment and never looks back again. Bounds down the sidewalk as though it was made for her and her alone.

She is resilience in canine form. Majestic as her forebears.

As we pack my pickup truck for our escape, making good on Antony's best-laid plans, I know there's nowhere we can go that's truly safe. The heat will follow us, and so will Dawn's lawyers. It's boiling everywhere, and those in power would rather knock it all down than fix anything. Nothing pisses me off worse than accelerationism.

But with Sugar riding shotgun, and the AC on full blast, the storm clouds over the open road feel like karma coming due.

I roll the window down to let her soak in the atmosphere. To smell the reckoning foretold by the wind. I see that stubby tail wagging, and think, at least we'll be on the move.

Just the way Sugar likes it.