Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMRCJ8S483XCBDRDX4N5NSD

The Raven’s Nest was quiet for a Tuesday. A low thrum of conversation hummed under the jazz drifting from the speakers, the scent of old wood and polished brass hanging in the air like a familiar coat. Rory sat at the far end of the bar, a half-empty glass of amber liquid before her. The dim, honeyed light caught the worn surface of the mahogany, turning the scratches and stains into a kind of topography of nights past. She traced a long groove with her fingertip, a map of someone else’s forgotten spill. It was her third night off in a row, a rare luxury, and she was savoring the stillness. Upstairs, her flat was waiting, a box of books still unpacked, a silent testament to the six months she’d been here. Six months of learning the streets of London on her delivery bike, of memorizing the faces of the regulars, of breathing in the air of a city that still felt like a borrowed coat. Silas moved behind the bar, his steps softened by the slight, almost imperceptible limp in his left leg. He didn’t speak, just placed a small bowl of wasabi peanuts next to her glass, his silver signet ring flashing once in the low light before his hand disappeared. He knew her moods. He knew when she wanted company and when she wanted the company of ghosts. Tonight, it was the latter. She offered him a grateful nod and popped a peanut into her mouth, the sharp heat a welcome distraction. The bell above the door chimed, a cheerful, incongruous sound that sliced through the mellow atmosphere. Rory didn’t look up. New patrons were a constant, a river of strangers flowing in and out of the Nest. But then a voice, smooth and confident, cut through the low jazz. “Laila? Laila Carter? Is that really you?” The name hit her like a physical blow. Laila. A ghost from a life she had buried in Cardiff. A name she hadn’t heard in years, not since Eva had started calling her Rory, a name that felt like armor. Her head snapped up, her cool-headed composure fracturing for a split second. Standing by the entrance, silhouetted for a moment against the distinctive green neon glow of the sign, was a man. He stepped forward, into the bar’s warm light, and the years fell away. It was Liam. Liam O’Connell, from her Pre-Law program. The boy who used to debate semantics with her until 3 a.m. in the university library, his hair perpetually messy, his glasses perpetually smudged. This was not that boy. This man wore a tailored grey suit that probably cost more than her monthly rent. His dark hair was styled with an effortless precision she knew must have cost a fortune, and the smudged glasses were gone, replaced by stylish, thin-rimmed frames. He looked… polished. Success seemed to cling to him like a cologne. “Rory,” she corrected, her voice tighter than she intended. The word came out clipped, a small wall thrown up between past and present. Liam’s smile faltered for a moment, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. “Rory? Of course. Sorry. It’s been a while.” He approached the bar, his expensive shoes silent on the old floorboards. “What are you doing in London? I thought you were staying in Cardiff, taking over the world with your dad’s firm.” The mention of her father, of the path she had so decisively abandoned, sent a familiar pang of something—regret, resentment, she could never quite untangle the two. “Plans change,” she said, turning back to her glass. She hoped the finality in her tone would be enough. Silas appeared, a silent sentinel. “Another for you, Rory?” he asked, his hazel eyes assessing Liam with a quick, professional glance. “No, I’m good, Si.” She gestured vaguely with her head. “He’s with me.” Liam slid onto the stool beside her, the scent of his expensive cologne washing over her, clean and alien. “A whiskey, please. Whatever she’s having.” Silas poured without a word, his movements economical and precise. He placed the glass down and retreated to his end of the bar, seemingly absorbed in polishing a pint glass, but Rory knew he was listening. It was the kind of place he ran. A sanctuary. And right now, it felt under siege. “So,” Liam began, swirling the whiskey in his glass. “Rory. It suits you.” He took a sip, his eyes on her. “You look good. Really good.” “You too,” she said, the words feeling hollow. He didn’t just look good; he looked like a different species. He was the future she’d been groomed for, the one she’d run screaming from. “I didn’t know you were in London.” “Moved here about three years ago. Got a position at Farrington & Croft. Corporate law.” He said it with a casual pride that made her stomach clench. “It’s… demanding. But rewarding. I’m making junior partner next year.” “Congratulations,” she murmured, the small, crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist beginning to itch. A childhood accident, her parents always said. A fall from a swing. She remembered it differently. She remembered the sharp, sudden pain, the shock of blood on her pale skin. A small, sharp lesson in how quickly things can go wrong. “Thanks.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He was studying her, really studying her now. “And you? What brings you to… this place? Do you work around here?” “I live upstairs.” His eyebrows lifted. “Seriously? In Soho?” He looked around the bar, at the old maps of London and the black-and-white photographs of long-gone faces. “It’s… atmospheric. I’ll give it that. A bit of a dive, but I can see the charm.” She bristled. *Her* place. He was calling *her* place a dive. “It’s home.” The words were quiet but firm. “Right. Of course.” He backtracked, sensing the shift in her mood. “So what do you do? Are you at a firm here, too? I could put in a word, if you’re looking. Farrington’s always on the lookout for sharp minds. You were the best in our cohort, Laila. You could have had any clerkship you wanted.” There it was. The ghost of Laila, the brilliant law student, the prodigy. The girl who could argue a point of tort law until her opponent wept. That girl was a stranger to her now. “I’m a delivery person,” she said, the words tasting like defiance in her mouth. “For a Chinese restaurant.” Liam stared. The polished, confident mask cracked, and pure, unadulterated shock showed through. “A… what? You’re joking.” “I don’t joke about my rent,” she said, taking a long swallow of her whiskey. The burn was a comfort. “I deliver for the Golden Empress. Great dumplings.” He was silent for a long moment, processing. The jazz seemed to grow louder, filling the awkward space between them. He looked from her face to her worn jacket, to her hands resting on the bar. He was trying to reconcile the woman in front of him with the memory of the girl he knew. The chasm was too wide. “But… why?” he finally asked, his voice softer now, tinged with something that sounded suspiciously like pity. “What happened? Did you fail the bar? Is that it? Because it’s not the end of the world, you could just—” “I didn’t fail,” she cut in, her voice low and cold. “I left. I just… left.” She couldn’t tell him about Evan. About the slow, creeping poison of that relationship, about the way he’d chipped away at her confidence until she was a shell of herself. About the night she’d packed a single bag and fled to London with only Eva’s promise of a sofa to sleep on. That was a story for another lifetime, for another person. Not for the man in the five-hundred-pound suit. “Left,” he repeated, as if the word were foreign. “You just left all of it behind. Your degree, your future… Evan. How is Evan, by the way? I always wondered what happened with you two. He was a bit of a character, wasn’t he?” The name was a slap in the face. Evan. A character. That was one word for it. The itching on her wrist became a fire. She looked down, at the faint white line on her skin. It wasn’t from a swing. It was from a shattered glass, a thrown mug, a moment when a “character” had lost his temper. She had lied to her parents, to her friends, to herself, for so long the lie had become the truth. But hearing Liam say his name so casually, with a sort of detached nostalgia, made the real truth surface, sharp and ugly. She didn’t answer. She just stared at her glass, her knuckles white. “Rory?” Liam prompted, his voice laced with a concern that felt like an intrusion. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” She lifted her head, and the cool-headed intelligence he remembered was back in her bright blue eyes, but it was harder now, forged in a different fire. “You didn’t say anything wrong, Liam. You just don’t know anything at all.” She slid off the stool, her movements fluid and decisive. “It was good to see you. Really. But I have an early start.” She was dismissing him. He saw it, the finality in her posture, the wall back up, higher and thicker than before. He opened his mouth, then closed it. What could he say? The conversation was over. They were two people who had once shared a world, now standing on opposite sides of an unbridgeable gap. He was a success story. She was… a survivor. “Right,” he said, standing awkwardly. “Well. It was… it was really good to see you, Rory. Take care of yourself.” “You too,” she replied, her tone already distant. She watched him walk away, a perfect silhouette against the green glow before the door swung shut, plunging the bar back into its familiar dimness. Rory stood there for a long moment, the silence of the bar pressing in on her. She could feel Silas’s gaze on her, but he didn’t speak. He just waited. Finally, she sat back down, the energy draining out of her, leaving her feeling hollowed out. The ghost of Laila Carter had come calling, and for a few minutes, she had felt the sharp, biting sting of all the things she had lost. But as she looked around the Nest—at the maps, at the photos, at the quiet man watching over his domain—she felt the solid weight of the life she had chosen. A life that was hers. A life that was real. She picked up her glass, the whiskey a warm, steady weight in her hand, and finished it in one go.