Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXA7Y2JVCJZPZSR4JY42AC

The Raven’s Nest exhaled the scent of aged oak and clove smoke into the damp Soho night. Rain slicked the cobbles outside, reflecting the green neon pulse of the sign above the door like a dying heartbeat. Inside, the usual hush clung to the corners—low jazz from a vinyl player, the clink of ice in a glass, the murmur of men who spoke little and listened too much. Rory Carter stood just inside the doorway, shaking water from her black leather jacket. Her shoulder-length hair clung to her neck in damp strands, and the small crescent scar on her left wrist caught the lamplight as she pushed the door shut behind her. She scanned the room: three patrons at the bar, backs turned, silhouettes haloed in amber. No one looked up. She let out a slow breath and made her way to the far end, the heel of her boot stuttering faintly on the warped floorboard near the fireplace. She hadn’t planned on stopping in. The shift had ended an hour ago, her bike was still out back chained to the rail, but she’d needed somewhere to sit before climbing the narrow stairs to her flat, where silence gathered like dust. The Raven’s Nest was never silent. It was alive with secrets, with old men nursing cheap whiskey and unspoken histories. And with him. Silas stood behind the bar, polishing a tumbler with the same deliberate rhythm he’d had for the past eight years. His auburn hair, streaked with grey like iron rust, was cut short at the sides. The silver signet ring on his right hand caught the low light each time he moved, a subtle gleam like a code. He didn’t look up, but his voice came soft, steady. “You’re late.” “I had a delivery in Camden,” she said, sliding onto her usual stool. “Traffic was a nightmare.” “You’re not on the schedule tonight.” He poured her a glass of ginger ale without asking. She used to drink gin with him—two fingers, splash of tonic—but that was before Prague. Before the blood. Before the silence that had stretched between them like a fault line. “Yu-Fei let me finish early. Said I looked like I’d seen a ghost.” Silas’s mouth twitched, just at the corner. He set the glass down. “He’s perceptive.” She wrapped her fingers around the cool glass, let the fizz sting her skin. “So are you.” Footsteps creaked behind her. Light, measured. She turned. The man at the entrance hesitated, hand on the doorframe, water pooling around his polished Oxford shoes. He wore a charcoal overcoat, tailored, open at the front to reveal a navy suit beneath. His face was different—thinner, harder, shadowed under the eyes. But the eyes themselves—dark, searching—still held the same restless hunger. Rory’s breath caught in her throat. Evan Reed. He didn’t look like the man who had thrown a lamp across her flat in Cardiff. Didn’t look like the one who’d whispered prayers into her ear the night he broke her wrist. This man was polished. Controlled. A corporate ghost in a Savile Row skin. And yet. His gaze landed on her like a bullet. Silas tensed. Rory felt it—the tightening in the air, the way the music seemed to lower its voice. Silas reached slowly for a rag, folding it once, twice, his limp more pronounced as he stepped back from the bar top. Evan didn’t move toward them. Not yet. He took off his coat, hung it with care on a hook, then walked forward like he owned the silence. “Well,” he said, voice smoother than Rory remembered. “I thought I smelled regret.” She didn’t answer. Her fingers curled around the glass. The scar on her wrist pulsed. “You look well,” he went on. “London suits you.” “You found me.” “Not hard. Your name still shows up on Yu-Fei’s delivery logs. Public-facing app. Basic geo-tagging.” Silas cleared his throat. “You’re not welcome here, Evan.” Evan smiled—an absence of warmth. “Still protecting her, Silas? After everything?” “Everything,” Rory said, finally, “was on you.” Evan turned to her fully. He studied her face as if reading a map he’d once memorized but no longer trusted. “You changed your hair.” “It was six years ago.” “Still. I’d have known you anywhere. That look—you always had it. Like the world wronged you personally.” “It did.” Silas set a glass of water in front of Evan. Didn’t ask. Just placed it there like a challenge. Evan sipped. “You still don’t serve anything worth drinking.” “I remember the last time you walked in here,” Rory said. “You slapped me in front of half the bar. Silas broke your nose.” Evan touched the bridge of his nose, almost thoughtfully. “I was young. In pain.” “You were violent.” “I loved you.” “That’s not love.” “Maybe not the way you saw it.” He looked at Silas. “You taught her to parrot that, didn’t you? That love isn’t possession? That respect isn’t loyalty? She used to believe the opposite.” Rory stood. “I believed what I survived.” The room held its breath. The jazz crackled at the end of a track, then silence. “You think I don’t think about it?” Evan said, quieter now. “Every day. The way I looked at you. The things I said. I—” He stopped. Shook his head. “I went to therapy. Real therapy. Not the kind where you sit and cry while someone nods. I faced it. All of it.” “And now you wear three-thousand-pound suits and say *I faced it* like it absolves you?” Rory’s voice didn’t rise. It carved. “You don’t get absolution, Evan. Not from me.” “I don’t want absolution.” He looked down, then back up. “I wanted to see you. To say I’m sorry. Not for forgiveness. For me. So I could walk away without carrying it.” Silas moved then, stepping around the bar. His limp heavier, deliberate. He placed a hand on Rory’s shoulder. Not gripping. Anchoring. “You were never the problem,” Evan said. “I was. But you running—leaving—I took that as betrayal. Like you ruined us.” “We were already ruined,” she said. “The night you pinned me to the kitchen wall and told me not to speak to Eva again. That was the end.” He flinched. Silas’s hand pressed gently. Evan exhaled. “I remember. I remember everything. And it sickens me.” No one spoke. Rain tapped the windows like fingertips. Finally, Evan reached into his coat, pulled out a slim envelope. White. Thick paper. He set it on the bar. “What’s that?” Rory asked. “Tickets. To that Almodóvar retrospective. The one we talked about. Before… before everything. I thought—” He stopped. “I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that you still liked art films. Maybe that some version of us could’ve gone.” Rory stared at the envelope. Didn’t touch it. “You don’t get to rewrite us,” she said. “We weren’t romantic. We were toxic.” Evan nodded slowly. “Yeah. We were.” He picked up his coat. Didn’t look at Silas. Didn’t ask for permission. At the door, he paused. “You look happy, Rory.” She didn’t answer. The door closed behind him. Silence flooded in. Rory picked up the envelope, turned it over in her hands. Then dropped it into the trash behind the bar. She picked up her glass, finished the ginger ale in one swallow. “You okay?” Silas asked. She didn’t reply. Instead, she stared at the spot where Evan had stood, where the water from his shoes had already begun to dry. Time didn’t heal. It layered. And some layers never settled.