Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNG2DVSGC1PDKGB3ATZN58T

The Raven's Nest was quiet for a Thursday evening, the usual Soho crowd still trickling in from work. Rory sat at the end of the bar, nursing a gin and tonic that had long since gone flat. She'd come to see Silas about something - what it was, she couldn't quite remember now. The day had been long, deliveries running late, the usual chaos at the Golden Empress. Her feet ached. She was studying the intricate pattern of water rings on the dark wood when she heard it - that laugh. Deep, rumbling, with just a hint of something darker underneath. Her head snapped up. There, in the back corner booth, sat a man who looked like he'd stepped out of her worst memories. Evan. Except it wasn't Evan. The face was similar enough - the same strong jawline, the same dark hair - but everything else was wrong. Where Evan had been lean and hungry, this man was solid, powerful. Where Evan's eyes had been cold and calculating, these eyes held warmth, crinkling at the corners as he laughed again. Rory's hand tightened around her glass. The conversation she'd come to have with Silas evaporated from her mind. All she could think about was how this man's face mirrored the one that had haunted her nightmares for the past two years. "Problems with your drink?" Silas' voice came from beside her, smooth as always. She hadn't even heard him approach. She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. Silas followed her gaze to the back booth, and something shifted in his expression. Understanding, maybe. Or recognition. "Friend of yours?" he asked, already knowing the answer. Rory swallowed hard. "Not exactly." Silas studied her for a moment, then nodded toward the booth. "That's Declan O'Malley. Used to work with me, years ago. Haven't seen him in a long time." The name meant nothing to her, but the way Silas said it - carefully, like testing the weight of each syllable - told her this was important. She watched as Declan threw his head back and laughed again, and something twisted in her chest. That laugh. It was the same laugh that used to echo through her apartment at all hours, the laugh that had turned cold and cruel in the end. "He looks like someone I used to know," she said finally, and even to her own ears, her voice sounded small. Silas was quiet for a moment. "People change, Rory. Sometimes more than we expect." She wanted to argue, to say that some things never changed, that monsters stayed monsters. But looking at Declan - really looking - she saw the differences. The way he moved, confident but not predatory. The way his hands gestured when he spoke, open and expressive instead of clenched and tight. The laugh that reached his eyes instead of stopping cold at his throat. "He was different back then," Silas continued, as if reading her thoughts. "We all were. War changes people. Makes them harder or breaks them entirely." Rory's fingers traced the rim of her glass. "What kind of war?" Silas just looked at her, and in that look she saw the weight of years, of secrets carried too long. "The kind that leaves marks you can't see." She thought about the crescent-shaped scar on her wrist, the one she always told people came from a childhood accident. The one that had actually come from a night when Evan's hand had closed around her arm too tightly, when his fingers had dug in hard enough to break skin. "You know," Silas said after a moment, "sometimes running into the past is exactly what we need. A chance to see how far we've come." Rory wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that seeing this man who looked like her nightmares made flesh could be anything other than a cruel trick of fate. But the weight of it all - the memories, the fear, the constant looking over her shoulder - sat heavy in her chest. "I didn't come here to talk about him," she said finally, forcing her gaze away from the back booth. "I need..." But the words wouldn't come. What did she need? Answers? Closure? The impossible - to go back and change everything that had happened? Silas seemed to understand. He nodded toward the hidden door behind the bookshelf. "Come on. Let's talk somewhere more private." As they moved through the bar, Rory couldn't help but glance back at Declan one more time. He was looking at his phone now, brow furrowed in concentration. For a moment, their eyes met across the room, and Rory froze. But there was no recognition in his gaze, no flash of cruel amusement. Just a quick, assessing look - the kind any man might give an attractive woman in a bar - before he turned back to his phone. Rory let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. In the secret room, Silas poured two fingers of whiskey into heavy crystal glasses. The amber liquid caught the light from the single lamp, throwing warm shadows across the walls lined with books. "He really is different," Silas said, handing her a glass. "Whatever you think you know about him, whatever he reminds you of - it's not him. People change, Rory. Sometimes they become better than they were." She wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that redemption was possible, that people could change so completely that even their shadows were different. But the weight of her own experience sat heavy in her bones. "I should go," she said, setting the untouched whiskey on the table. "I just... I can't." Silas nodded, understanding in his eyes. "It's okay. These things take time." As she made her way out of the bar, she couldn't resist one last look back. Declan was still in the back booth, still looking at his phone. But now he was smiling, a small private smile that transformed his whole face. Rory pushed open the door and stepped out into the Soho night. The air was cool against her skin, smelling of rain and exhaust and distant cooking spices from the Chinese restaurants lining the street. She started walking, not sure where she was going but knowing she needed to move. Behind her, through the green neon glow of The Raven's Nest's sign, she could see Declan's silhouette in the window. For a moment, just a moment, she let herself wonder. What if people could change? What if the monsters of our past could become something else entirely? What if, given enough time and enough distance, we could all become strangers to our worst selves? The questions swirled in her mind as she walked, each step taking her further from the bar and closer to whatever came next. Tomorrow, she knew, she would still wake up with the weight of memory on her chest. Tomorrow, she would still flinch at certain sounds, still check over her shoulder in empty streets. But maybe - just maybe - tomorrow she would also remember that laugh. Not the cruel echo of her nightmares, but the warm, genuine sound of someone who had become something new. And maybe that would be enough to keep walking forward, into whatever came next.