Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMT6FT0NGYM3GGQVVNT8QFE

The green neon sign of The Raven's Nest cast an emerald glow across the rain-slicked pavement as Aurora pulled her jacket tighter against the October wind. She'd walked these Soho streets countless times over the past six months, but tonight something felt different—an electric anticipation that made her skin prickle. The familiar weight of her delivery bag hung from her shoulder, empty now after her final run for the Golden Empress. She pushed through the heavy wooden door, the brass handle cold under her palm. The bar's dim interior enveloped her like an old friend's embrace, all weathered leather and amber light. Maps covered the walls in overlapping layers, their edges curled with age, while black-and-white photographs captured frozen moments of a London that existed only in memory. Silas looked up from behind the bar, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. "Evening, Rory. Whiskey?" "Please." She settled onto her usual stool, noting how her landlord's slight limp seemed more pronounced tonight as he moved between bottles. The silver signet ring on his right hand caught the light as he poured two fingers of amber liquid into a glass. The bar held perhaps a dozen patrons scattered across its shadows, the usual mix of locals nursing pints and tourists clutching overpriced cocktails. Aurora had just lifted her glass when a voice from behind made her freeze. "Aurora Carter. Christ, I'd know that posture anywhere." The whiskey burned her throat as she turned, already knowing what she'd find. Marcus Holloway stood three feet away, his expensive suit tailored to perfection, his once-messy brown hair now styled with military precision. The boy who'd spent summer afternoons in her Cardiff garden catching frogs had become a man who looked like he'd stepped from the pages of a financial magazine. "Marcus." The name felt strange on her tongue, weighted with years of silence. His smile was perfect—too perfect, she realized. The crooked incisor that had made him self-conscious at sixteen had been corrected, along with every other imperfection time might have carved into his features. "May I?" He gestured to the empty stool beside her. Aurora nodded, her throat suddenly dry. Silas materialized with practiced efficiency, setting a crystal tumbler of what looked like expensive scotch in front of Marcus without being asked. "So," Marcus said, settling onto the stool with fluid grace, "Aurora Carter in a Soho dive bar. This wasn't on my list of likely encounters." "It's not a dive." The words came out sharper than she'd intended. "And I live upstairs." Something flickered across his face—surprise, perhaps, or disappointment. "Of course. I should have realized." He lifted his glass in a mock toast. "To unexpected reunions." She didn't return the gesture. Instead, she studied his profile as he drank, noting the subtle changes that money and ambition had wrought. His jaw was sharper now, carved by expensive treatments and careful nutrition. The laugh lines around his eyes had been smoothed away, leaving only the faintest traces of the boy who'd once cried in her arms after his father's funeral. "You look well," he said, though his gaze lingered on her delivery bag with barely concealed confusion. "Different, but well." "Different how?" "Harder. More..." He paused, swirling the scotch in his glass. "Defined, I suppose. The Aurora I knew was softer around the edges." The observation stung because it was true. The girl who'd left Cardiff had believed in fairy tale endings and second chances. London had taught her otherwise. "People change," she said. "Indeed they do." His smile returned, that polished curve she was beginning to hate. "Though some of us change for the better. I assume you heard about the promotion? Senior partner at Whitmore & Associates. Youngest in the firm's history." She hadn't heard, hadn't kept track of his meteoric rise through London's financial elite. The Marcus she'd known had wanted to teach history, had spent hours in university libraries researching obscure medieval battles with the passion of a true academic. "Congratulations." The word felt like broken glass. "Thank you. It's been quite the journey." He paused, studying her face with clinical interest. "What about you? Still pursuing law?" The question hung between them like a blade. She could lie, could craft some story about taking time off or exploring other options. Instead, she found herself telling the truth. "I never wanted law. That was my father's dream." Marcus blinked, the first crack in his perfect composure. "But you were brilliant at it. Remember that mock trial in Professor Williams' class? You destroyed the opposition." "Being good at something doesn't mean you should do it." She took another sip of whiskey, letting it burn away the memory of herself at twenty-one, standing in a Cardiff courtroom and feeling nothing but hollow victory. "So what do you do now?" "I deliver Chinese food." The silence stretched between them, filled with the bar's ambient noise—clinking glasses, muted conversations, the soft jazz bleeding from hidden speakers. Marcus stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. "That's..." He seemed to struggle for words. "That's quite a change." "Is it? Maybe this is who I was always meant to be." "Don't be ridiculous." His voice carried a sharp edge now, the first genuine emotion she'd heard from him. "You're wasting yourself, Aurora. You have a brilliant mind, and you're using it to—" "To what? Survive? To find something that doesn't make me want to disappear?" The words came out louder than she'd intended, drawing glances from nearby patrons. Silas's eyes found hers in the mirror behind the bar, a silent question. She shook her head slightly. Marcus leaned closer, lowering his voice. "This isn't you. The Aurora I knew had dreams, ambitions. She wanted to change the world." "The Aurora you knew was a child." She turned to face him fully, noting how he recoiled slightly from the intensity in her bright blue eyes. "She believed in justice and fairness and happy endings. She believed that good people got rewarded and bad people got punished." "And now?" "Now I deliver lo mein to strangers and sleep above a bar, and I'm happier than I've been in years." It was true, she realized as the words left her lips. Despite everything—the cramped flat, the minimum-wage job, the way her parents' phone calls had dwindled to awkward monthly check-ins—she felt more like herself than she had since childhood. Marcus finished his scotch in one swallow, his composed mask slipping further. "I don't understand you anymore." "Did you ever?" The question hung between them like an accusation. She watched him process it, saw the moment when memory collided with present reality. They'd been inseparable once, two outcasts in a small Welsh town who'd found solace in each other's company. But that had been before university, before London, before life had carved them into shapes they no longer recognized. "I thought I did," he said quietly. "I thought we wanted the same things." "We were eighteen, Marcus. We didn't know what we wanted." "I knew I wanted you." The admission fell between them like a stone into still water. Aurora felt something twist in her chest, a pain she'd thought buried beneath years of careful forgetting. "That was a long time ago." "Not that long." He reached toward her, then stopped, his hand hovering inches from her wrist. "We could still—" "Could still what? Pretend we're the same people we were at university? Pretend that seven years of silence don't matter?" His hand fell to the bar. "I tried to call. After graduation, I mean. You'd changed your number." "I changed everything." The weight of those words settled between them. She could see him trying to understand, this man who'd climbed every ladder life had offered, who'd never learned that sometimes the only victory was in walking away. "I should go," she said, standing. "Aurora, wait." He grabbed her wrist, his fingers brushing the small crescent scar that marked her childhood accident. "Let me buy you dinner. Proper dinner, not whatever takeaway you're living on. We could talk—" "There's nothing to talk about." She pulled free, noting how his touch felt foreign against her skin. "We're different people now. That's not anyone's fault. It just is." She left money on the bar and headed for the door, feeling his eyes follow her movement. At the threshold, she turned back one last time. Marcus sat hunched over his empty glass, the perfect lines of his suit suddenly seeming like armor against a world he no longer understood. "Marcus?" He looked up, hope flickering across his features. "I'm glad you got what you wanted." The door closed behind her with a soft click, sealing away the past and the man who'd once promised her the world. Outside, the rain had stopped, leaving the streets gleaming under the neon glow. Aurora walked to the narrow door beside the bar's entrance and climbed the stairs to her flat, each step carrying her further from the girl she'd been and deeper into the woman she'd chosen to become.