Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMRBCHGHRC2QHKM9PFYTP10

Rain lacquered Soho’s pavement until the streetlights looked smeared, as if someone had dragged a thumb through the city’s face. Aurora Carter ducked her head beneath the green neon that bled RAVEN’S NEST into the wet night, and for a moment she watched her own reflection in the darkened glass—shoulder-length black hair gone slightly frizzy at the ends, bright blue eyes sharpened by tiredness, mouth set in the kind of line that passed for calm. It wasn’t fear, exactly. It was the familiar vigilance that lived under her skin now, a second pulse. Inside, warmth and stale hops wrapped around her. The bar was dim in the way of places that didn’t want to be discovered unless you were looking. Old maps wallpapered the walls in layers, their edges curling like dried leaves; black-and-white photographs stared back from frames that had seen more than one owner. The room smelled of citrus peel and whisky and the faint dust of paper, as if the past had been decanted into the air along with the spirits. Silas Blackwood stood behind the counter with his usual quiet command, his grey-streaked auburn hair combed back, his neatly trimmed beard catching the light when he turned. He moved with a slight favoring of his left leg—never dramatic, never hidden—like a man who had made a pact with pain and negotiated terms. The silver signet ring on his right hand flashed when he wiped a glass. Rory shrugged out of her jacket and hooked it over a stool. The sleeves of her delivery hoodie were pushed up, exposing the small crescent scar on her left wrist. It had faded over the years, but under the bar’s low light it looked newly made, a pale smile. “You’re late,” Silas said without heat. His gaze flicked to her face and then away, granting her the dignity of not being inspected. “Golden Empress had a surge,” she said. “Tourists. Office types. One bloke asked me if Szechuan pepper was ‘meant to feel like that.’” Silas’s mouth twitched. “They pay extra for surprise.” Rory leaned her hip against the bar. Her feet ached the way they always did when the day had been too long and the streets too unkind. She’d been rehearsing the small rituals of coming home—bar noise below, flat above, Silas’s steady presence like an old lock on a door—but her body didn’t settle. Something in the room felt…tilted. It took her a few seconds to identify it. A laugh, bright and threaded with smoke, cut through the low murmur of conversation. It landed in Rory’s chest like a coin dropped into a well. She turned, already telling herself not to be ridiculous, that laughter was plentiful and the years had rearranged everyone’s voices. In a booth along the left wall, beneath a map of the Baltic that had gone the color of old tea, a woman sat with her back half-turned. The posture was familiar—the way her shoulders angled as if she were both present and ready to leave. A glass stood in front of her, sweating. Her hair, once a tumble of chestnut curls, was now cut blunt at her jaw, darker, sleek. A coat lay draped beside her, expensive-looking, the kind that kept out weather and other people’s expectations. She lifted her glass, and the light caught the side of her face. Rory’s throat tightened. She forgot, for a heartbeat, how to breathe. Eva. Eva Hughes—who had once shared crisps with her behind the gym at school, who had passed her notes in lectures at Cardiff University, who had sat on Rory’s childhood bed and said, with a stubborn kind of love, You can’t stay there, Rory. Come to London. I’ll help. Eva, who had become a name in Rory’s phone she never dared to press because what would she say? Sorry I vanished. Sorry I couldn’t be the person you believed I was. Rory’s hand slid along the bar until her fingers found the edge and held it. Silas noticed the shift in her, the way a man notices weather. “What is it?” he asked, voice low. Rory couldn’t answer immediately. Her eyes stayed locked on the booth as if looking away would break something. Silas followed her gaze. His expression didn’t change much, but something sharpened around his eyes, the way a knife sharpens quietly. He set the glass down. “You know her.” Rory’s tongue felt thick. “I used to.” Silas studied Eva with the kind of assessment that never looked like staring. “Do you want me to—” “No.” Rory heard the harshness in her own voice and softened it. “No. I’ll… I’ll go.” Silas’s ring tapped once against the bar, a small metallic punctuation. “All right.” Rory pushed away from the counter, legs moving before her mind had fully agreed. She crossed the room with the sensation of walking into a photograph—everything slightly unreal, edges too crisp. The maps watched her. The faces in the black-and-white frames watched her. The air grew thicker with each step, as if the past had weight. Eva was looking down at her phone. Her fingers moved with practiced speed, nails short, unpainted. The phone itself was new, clean, the kind of rectangle that cost more than Rory’s monthly groceries. Rory stopped at the edge of the booth. Close up, Eva’s changes multiplied. The softness of youth had been traded for angles. There were faint lines at the corners of her mouth that hadn’t been there before, and her eyes—still the same green—held a steadiness that felt earned. Rory heard herself say, “Eva?” Eva’s head lifted. For a fraction of a second her face was blank, a polite mask presented to strangers. Then recognition hit, and it didn’t arrive gently. It pulled. “Rory,” Eva said, and Rory’s name in her voice was a hand reaching out and then hesitating. “Jesus. Rory Carter.” Rory’s smile felt wrong on her face, too big for what she had. “I thought I was seeing things.” Eva stood abruptly, the booth bench scraping softly. She was a little taller than Rory remembered, or maybe just straighter. She smelled faintly of rain and something expensive—bergamot, maybe. She stared as if trying to count the years on Rory’s skin. “Look at you,” Eva said. It came out as both wonder and accusation. Rory’s laugh cracked. “That’s usually a bad sign.” Eva’s mouth tried to mirror the humor, but it faltered. Her gaze dropped to Rory’s wrist, catching on the pale crescent scar as if it were a clue. Then up again, into Rory’s eyes. “Can we sit?” Rory slid into the booth opposite her, knees knocking lightly against the table. Eva sat as well, slower now, as if sudden movements had become optional in her life rather than default. For a moment they looked at each other and let the silence do what it wanted. The bar’s low soundtrack filled in the gaps: muted conversations, the occasional clink of glass, a laugh that didn’t belong to them. Eva broke first. “I didn’t know you were here. I mean—” She gestured vaguely, encompassing the bar, Soho, London itself. “I knew you were in London. I just… I didn’t know where.” Rory watched Eva’s hands. They were steady, but her thumb rubbed along the edge of her glass in a small, repetitive motion. “I’m upstairs,” Rory said. “I live above.” Eva blinked. “Above a bar.” “It’s cheaper than therapy,” Rory said, then regretted the joke as soon as it left her mouth. Eva’s gaze sharpened. “Rory.” Rory swallowed. “Sorry. It’s just—this is home, I suppose. Or the closest thing.” Eva leaned forward slightly. “How long have you been living above a bar?” “Two years,” Rory said. “Maybe more. Time’s…” She lifted a shoulder. “…slippery.” “And you work—” Eva’s eyes flicked toward Rory’s hoodie, the frayed cuff, the faint stain of soy sauce she hadn’t managed to wash out. “You work here?” “No. I deliver for a restaurant. Golden Empress. It’s decent. Yu-Fei’s good to me.” Eva’s expression did something complicated at the word decent. Once, they had been girls with plans, half-formed and loud. Eva had wanted to be in PR, to spin narratives and make money doing it. Rory had wanted—Rory had wanted to make her father proud, to make the bruises in her life mean something by turning into someone who could argue her way out of any corner. Now she delivered food through London rain and called it decent. “And you?” Rory asked, because if she didn’t ask she would keep staring at the differences and inventing stories she couldn’t stand. “What are you doing here?” Eva’s mouth parted. Closed. She glanced toward the bar, toward Silas, who pretended not to watch while watching anyway. “Work,” Eva said. Rory waited. Eva exhaled, a soft huff of laughter that wasn’t amused. “I knew you’d do that. The waiting. The looking at me like I’m a crossword clue.” “I’m not looking at you like anything,” Rory lied. Eva’s eyes held hers. “You always were terrible at lying.” Rory’s cheeks warmed. “I had practice. Just not talent.” Another pause. Eva’s fingers tightened briefly around her glass, then loosened. “I’m… I consult,” she said. “Crisis management. Reputation. That sort of thing.” It sounded polished, a job description designed to slide past curiosity. Rory heard the carefulness under it, the way Eva kept her words on a lead. “That suits you,” Rory said. Eva’s laugh came out sharper this time. “Does it? I don’t know if anything suits me anymore. I just wear things until they stop fitting.” Rory’s chest tightened at that, because she understood too well. She took a breath and tried to be brave in the only way she knew how: by stepping into the truth rather than skirting it. “I didn’t call you,” Rory said. Eva stared at her, unblinking. “No.” “I should have.” Eva’s mouth twitched, and for a heartbeat Rory saw the girl she remembered—the one who stole chips off Rory’s plate and grinned like rules were suggestions. But the grin didn’t come. Instead Eva looked down at her glass. “You left,” Eva said quietly. Rory’s hands tightened in her lap. “I told you I was leaving.” “You texted,” Eva corrected. “At two in the morning. Two lines. I’m safe. Don’t worry. As if that was—” She cut herself off. Her jaw worked, muscle flexing. When she looked up again, her eyes were bright with something she refused to name. Rory felt shame bloom, slow and hot. She’d told herself a hundred stories about that night. She’d been afraid. She’d been tired. She’d been in survival mode. All true. None of them erased the fact that she had disappeared from Eva’s life like a thief. “I didn’t know how to be in contact without…” Rory’s voice failed and she tried again. “Without bringing him back to you. Evan. He—” Eva’s face hardened at the name. “Don’t,” she said, and it wasn’t a request. Rory nodded. Her throat ached. “I was scared,” she admitted. “Not just of him. Of myself. Of how easily I… went quiet. How easily I let things happen.” Eva’s gaze softened by a fraction, but her shoulders stayed stiff. “You think I didn’t know you were scared?” “I think you knew,” Rory said. “And I think that made it worse. Because you were there. You saw it. And you still… you still thought I could just—” She snapped her fingers, a small sharp sound. “Leave. Become someone else.” Eva’s eyes flashed. “I did not think it would be easy.” “You made it sound easy.” Eva’s laugh was brittle. “I made it sound possible. There’s a difference.” Rory’s stomach twisted. She remembered Eva’s voice on that childhood bed: Come to London. I’ll help. The words had been a rope. Rory had grabbed it, and then—when she’d finally climbed out—she’d dropped the other end. Eva’s gaze drifted over Rory’s face, as if searching for old landmarks. “You look… different,” she said at last. “So do you,” Rory said. Eva nodded once, as if acknowledging a verdict. “Yeah. Well.” Rory hesitated. “Are you okay?” The question hung there, too simple for what it tried to hold. Eva’s lips pressed together. “I’m functional,” Eva said. “And you? Are you okay?” Rory almost laughed again, almost deflected. Instead she looked down at the table, at the faint ring where someone’s glass had sweated and dried. “I’m alive,” she said. “Most days I can manage that without too much effort.” Eva’s hand moved, then stopped short of touching Rory’s. The restraint in it hurt more than distance. “Rory,” Eva said softly, “I used to call you and your phone would go straight to voicemail.” Rory’s heart thudded. “I changed my number.” “I know,” Eva said. “I found that out when I called your mum. She didn’t know where you were either.” Rory flinched, heat flooding her face. “You called my mum.” Eva’s eyes didn’t waver. “Yes.” Rory’s voice dropped. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Tell you what?” Eva asked, and the hurt finally cracked through the polish. “That I was worried? That I felt like an idiot because I’d told you to come to London and then couldn’t find you in it? That I kept thinking if I walked down the right street I’d see you and you’d laugh and say you’d just been busy?” Rory’s breath shook. She fought the urge to look away. “I didn’t want anyone to find me,” she said, and the selfishness of it tasted bitter. Eva’s eyes narrowed. “Because you thought he’d look for you?” Rory nodded. “And you didn’t think I could handle knowing where you were?” Eva’s voice rose slightly, edged now. “You didn’t think I could keep a secret?” “It wasn’t that,” Rory said quickly. “It was—if you knew, then you were involved. And you’d already done enough.” Eva’s mouth tightened. “Enough.” Rory’s hands curled, nails pressing into her palm. “You got me out,” she said. “You shouldn’t have had to.” Eva stared at her as if Rory had spoken in another language. “You were my friend.” Rory swallowed, pain behind her eyes. “I know.” The bar noise seemed to dim, as if the room leaned in. Silas’s presence at the counter was a weight Rory could feel without looking: the quiet sentinel, giving her space but ready to intervene if this turned ugly. Rory almost wished he would. It would be easier to have an interruption than to keep excavating. Eva took a careful sip of her drink, buying herself time. When she set the glass down, she said, “Do you ever think about Cardiff?” Rory’s laugh came out soft, surprised. “All the time.” “Your dad?” Eva asked. “Brendan.” Rory’s throat tightened again, because her father’s name sounded like something from a different life, a life where she hadn’t run. “He writes,” Rory said. “Sometimes. Mum too. Jennifer’s handwriting is the same. Like she’s always underlining something.” Eva’s eyes held sympathy and something else, something like envy. “At least they write.” Rory caught it. “Your mum doesn’t?” Eva’s gaze flicked away. “No.” Rory didn’t push. She felt the shape of that no, the space behind it. She let it sit between them like an unopened letter. Eva looked back at her. “I’m sorry,” she said, and the words came out as if forced past teeth. “For making it sound easy.” Rory stared. The apology knocked the air out of her in a quiet way. “I’m sorry,” Rory said, because she had to say it, because it had been rotting in her for years. “For leaving you to wonder. For not calling. For—” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat. “For dropping the rope.” Eva’s eyes glistened, just slightly. She blinked, hard, as if refusing to allow herself the luxury of tears in public. “You were drowning,” she said, softer now. “I know that. But so was I, sometimes. And I—” She stopped, shook her head once. “I didn’t want to admit that to you.” Rory leaned back, the booth creaking. She let herself take Eva in again—not just the sharp coat and the sleek hair, but the tension in her shoulders, the way her gaze kept tracking the room like she was used to scanning exits. Crisis management, she had said. Rory wondered how many crises had managed Eva, instead. “You seem…” Rory searched for the word. “Armored.” Eva’s mouth curved, rueful. “You seem careful.” Rory’s chest tightened at the accuracy. “Careful keeps you alive.” Eva’s gaze dropped to Rory’s wrist again, to the crescent scar, and for a moment her expression softened into something almost tender. “Do you remember,” she said, voice low, “when you fell off that stupid bike and cried like the world was ending?” Rory blinked, caught off guard by the memory. “I was eight.” “And you refused to get back on,” Eva said. “You just sat there, holding your wrist, and you said, ‘If I get on again, it’ll happen again.’” Rory’s mouth went dry. The bar’s air felt suddenly thin. “I did say that.” Eva nodded, eyes steady. “And I told you, ‘Yeah. But if you don’t get on again, you’ll never go anywhere.’” Rory stared at her. The memory threaded through time, stitched into the present with quiet cruelty. “You’ve always been good at slogans,” Rory said, trying for lightness. Eva smiled faintly. “It’s a talent. Gets you jobs.” Rory’s gaze drifted toward the bar, where Silas had turned slightly, his attention still on them. She wondered what he saw: two women in a booth, talking. He wouldn’t see the years stacked between them like crates, the way every sentence was an attempt to lift one and find something intact underneath. Eva followed Rory’s glance. “This place yours?” Eva asked. “It’s Silas’s,” Rory said. “I just… orbit.” Eva’s eyes narrowed with interest. “Silas,” she repeated, tasting the name. “You trust him?” Rory hesitated, then nodded. “As much as I trust anyone.” Eva’s face shifted again, that scanning look returning. “That’s not an answer.” Rory met her gaze. “It is. For me.” Eva stared for a long moment, then exhaled. “Fair.” They sat in a silence that wasn’t empty so much as crowded. Rory felt the tug of things she wanted to ask—Where have you been? Who have you become?—and the fear of the answers. Eva’s phone buzzed on the table. She glanced at it, and something in her expression tightened, the armor snapping into place. She turned the screen face down without looking again. Rory’s heart sank. “You have to go.” Eva’s eyes met hers. “Yeah.” “Work,” Rory said, the word now heavy with suspicion. Eva didn’t deny it. “It’s complicated.” Rory nodded slowly. Complicated was the shape of adulthood, the shape of every apology that arrived too late. Eva stood, pulling her coat from the booth. She hesitated, then leaned forward. For a second Rory thought she might hug her, but instead Eva reached out and touched Rory’s wrist—two fingers, gentle, right over the crescent scar. The contact was brief, almost nothing, and it burned like a brand. “You got back on the bike,” Eva said quietly. Rory’s throat tightened. “I don’t know if I went anywhere.” Eva’s mouth softened. “You’re here. That’s somewhere.” Rory wanted to say, Stay. Tell me everything. Let me fix what I broke. But she knew better now than to ask for simple repairs. Time didn’t rewind. It only pressed forward, relentless as the rain outside. Eva stepped back. “I’m glad you’re alive,” she said, the words raw at the edges. Then, as if afraid of what else she might say, she turned and moved toward the door. Rory watched her weave through the bar’s dimness, past the maps and the photographs. The green neon from outside painted Eva’s silhouette when she opened the door, the rain’s sound rushing in like an old memory. For a moment Eva paused in the doorway and glanced back. Their eyes met across the room, and Rory felt the old bond flare—thin, strained, but still there, a thread that had refused to snap completely. Then Eva was gone, swallowed by Soho and weather and whatever life she’d built. Rory stayed in the booth until her legs remembered how to stand. When she finally rose and walked back to the bar, Silas was waiting with two fingers resting on the counter, signet ring catching the light. “You all right?” he asked. Rory looked at the spot where Eva had been, as if she might reappear like a corrected mistake. Her voice came out steady, because that was what she did—she found steadiness and held it like a shield. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I saw her. And she saw me.” Silas nodded, as if that alone mattered. “That’s something.” Rory drew in a breath that tasted of whisky and old paper and regret. Outside, the neon sign hummed softly, green against the rain, and the city kept moving the way it always did—forward, indifferent, carrying everyone along whether they were ready or not.