Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX36K242JFXQ6ANJT3E8YW

The heavy oak door swung inward, yanking a sharp intake of air from the humid London evening. Outside, the neon green sign of The Raven’s Nest buzzed and strobed, casting long, glistening shadows across the varnished floorboards inside. Silas stopped polishing the pint glass in his hand. He set it down with a deliberate, rhythmic clink against the counter. The bell above the door chimed again, a cheerful, disruptive note against the smoky bass that filtered through the wall from the alleyway. He looked up from the glass. His eyes, the color of stormy amber, narrowed slightly behind the curl of a trimmed grey beard. Rory stood in the entrance, clutching a battered brown paper bag to her chest. The fluorescent light from the streetlamp outside caught the straight black hair falling over her eyes, but she didn't brush it away. She stared at the room with a familiarity that didn't quite match the hesitation in her posture. "Yu-Fei Cheung," she said. Her voice was deeper than he remembered, stripped of the youthful lilt that used to float around the flat above his head when she was thirteen or fourteen. "She's sending out an emergency batch of the sweet chili beef dumplings. Late." Silas adjusted his weight, favoring his right leg slightly as the ache in the old knee throbbed in time with the bass. "I didn't order any. There's a lot of noise tonight." "I know." Rory stepped inside, the damp chill of the street leaving her skin as she moved toward him. She stopped at the end of the bar. The distance between them had once been filled with jokes about football and fierce arguments over history homework, but now it felt like a canyon. She was five years older than he had last seen her. The baby fat was gone, replaced by sharp angles. She looked tired. Not the kind of tired that comes from a long shift, but the kind that settles in the shoulders, heavy and unrelenting. "You're back," Silas said. It wasn't a question. He’d seen the names in the paper when the warrants for her ex-boyfriend had gone quiet, but he’d ignored them. Silas knew better than to reach out when people were trying to bury the past. "I am." She lifted the paper bag, offering it to him like an offering at an altar. "She says they’ll sit on a hot plate until they’re cold, and nobody wants that." Silas looked at the bag, then back at her. The small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist caught the light. He remembered helping her pick out bandages for that one, a stupid bicycle accident where she’d skinned her knee on pavement as steep as this city’s ambition. Now, the scar was a faded map of survival. He took the bag and set it on the counter behind him. "Sit," Silas said, gesturing to the high stool. "I’ve got a bottle of Glenfiddich I’ve been meaning to open." Rory hesitated, her fingers twitching toward the pocket of her delivery courier vest. She wore the gear of a city grinder now—sturdy boots, practical cargo pants, a jacket that smelled of rain and diesel. It was a uniform of function, starkly different from the tweed blazers she used to wear to seminars at Cardiff University before she walked out mid-lecture three years ago. "No alcohol," she said, her voice flat. "I have to be up early. Another shift." "You're twenty-five." Silas leaned his elbows on the sticky wood. "You're old enough to drink whisky and old enough to know that running yourself into the ground doesn't fix anything." Rory laughed, but it was a brittle sound, like a branch snapping under frost. "It beats waiting around for a phone to ring. Besides, it’s cheaper." "The job doesn't suit you, Rory." The silence that followed was thick, heavy with the ghosts of the flat above. She had been a good kid. Headstrong, yes, but idealistic. She wanted to be a barrister, wanted to tear apart systems that hurt people. She had taken a law degree, worn the robes in her imagination, and walked away. "Things changed," she said softly. "Bad things?" She looked at him then, really looked at him. For a second, the cool, guarded mask she wore slipped, and he saw the girl who used to hide in the bookshelves of his flat, reading espionage thrillers and plotting revolutions. The eyes that had always sparkled with mischief were now dark, reflecting nothing but the harsh streetlamp outside. "I had to leave Cardiff," she said. "I had to leave London." Silas nodded. He knew the story. He knew about Evan. The name alone carried the weight of the weight he knew she carried, a physical burden on her soul. He had watched Evan from across the bar a few times, saw the way he looked at her—possessive, hungry, wrong. Silas had wanted to step in, to be the father figure who pulled the car over and made her get out. He hadn't. He’d just watched her get in, and for years, he’d wondered if he was responsible for her running away. "I heard through Eva," Silas said carefully, watching her face for a flicker of emotion. "I heard you were in Cardiff, then... elsewhere. Where?" "Off the map," she replied. "For a little while. Just moving, you know? Trying not to look back." "You can't stop time, Silas." "No, but you can decide when you stop running." She looked at him, a strange mix of defiance and sadness flickering in her bright blue gaze. "You haven't changed much, you know. You're still sitting in this bunker, drinking your scotch, pretending the outside world doesn't exist." "I am a bar owner. This is my world." "It's a tomb." She stood up, placing her hands on the counter. "And I’m not the girl you remember, Silas. I’m not the one who wanted to save the world from laws. I learned that laws don't save anyone. You just learn how to survive them." Silas felt a sting of pain, sharp and sudden, behind his sternum. It was the regret of knowing he could have done more, done something to stop her from falling so far. He had been too focused on his own ghosts—the Prague operation, the failure, the limp—to see the cracks forming in the friendship he fostered. The bell above the door chimed, signaling a new round of customers entering the fog. The conversation died instantly, replaced by the ambient noise of the bar. Waitresses walked by carrying trays of clinking glasses. Men laughed loudly, slapping high fives. Rory’s hand drifted to her wrist, tracing the old scar. "I should go," she said. "I assume this is the 'I should go' that means you're never coming back?" She paused, looking at the beer taps, then at the wall covered in black-and-white photographs of spies and smugglers—men she probably knew from her father’s work, though she’d claimed ignorance for so long. "Maybe," she said. "Or maybe I just need to pick up another order before they close." Silas reached under the counter and pulled out a small, used chipped ceramic mug. He didn't put the whisky in it. He just pushed it toward her. "For the road," he said. "Yu-Fei's food is cold, but this is warm." She looked at the mug, then up at him. The tension in her jaw loosened, just a fraction. A ghost of a smile touched her lips, sad and knowing. "Thanks, Silas." "Don't spend it all in one place," he muttered, returning to his glass. Rory took the mug. It was the mug she had broken when she was twelve and threw it in a tantrum because she’d lost the debate competition. It had been fixed with epoxy resin by her mother years ago. She gripped the handle, feeling the warmth seep into her cold fingers. She turned and walked back out into the neon night. The door swung shut behind her, and the silence of The Raven’s Nest rushed back in to fill the vacuum. Silas looked at the empty stool. He looked at the paper bag of cold dumplings. He poured himself a drink, the amber liquid burning a clean line down his throat. The kid he had known—the one with big dreams and even bigger heart—was gone. Replaced by a survivor who had learned to hide in plain sight. He raised his glass to the empty room, honoring the memory of the girl who had been, and the woman who remained.