Lightning slashed across the sky so suddenly, so viciously bright, that for a heartbeat it was day again — trees glistening under sheets of rain, puddles swelling like burst veins, clouds crouching low and heavy as if ready to crush the world.
The storm wasn't just raging — it had broken loose, bellowing like a tide before it hits the shore.
Inside the trailer, the air had thickened, clinging to the skin. The lamp on the ceiling flickered fitfully, like an eyelid fluttering before death.
Leticia sat motionless, listening — not to the thunder, but to the silence between the thunder. Her fingers moved over the charms around her neck, one by one, slow and methodical, as though remembering a sequence from an old prayer.
"Do you feel it?" she whispered, voice dry, almost reverent.
William looked up. It took him a moment to realize she wasn't talking about the storm.
Because beneath the thunder there was something else — a faint metallic rattling, steady, deliberate.
