Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXHBAF66J58DC9YSN9DAVQ

Rain slicked the Soho cobblestones, turning the reflection of the distinctive green neon sign above the door into a smear of toxic light. The Raven’s Nest. A pretentious name for a hole-in-the-wall, but the damp chill of the London evening drove her inside. Aurora pushed the heavy oak door and stepped into the gloom. The air inside smelled of pipe tobacco, lemon polish, and stale beer. Low jazz curled from the speakers, something slow and melancholic that seemed to hang in the rafters with the dust. She shook the water from her black hair and moved to the bar, her boots making no sound on the threadbare carpet. She needed a drink. Something to burn away the lingering adrenaline of the move, the endless boxes, the crushing weight of a city that felt too large and too small all at once. She sat on a stool that groaned under her weight. The bar top was polished mahogany, scarred by years of rings and careless knives. "What’ll it have?" The voice was gravel and honey, roughened by smoke and time. It scraped against her memory, a sound she hadn’t heard in seven years. Aurora froze. Her hand, halfway to pulling a wet strand of hair from her face, stopped. She turned her head slowly. The man behind the bar was wiping a glass with a white cloth. His hair was auburn streaked with iron grey, pulled back in a queue that sat loosely against his collar. A beard, neatly trimmed, framed a jawline that had hardened with age. He moved with a deliberate, heavy gait, favouring his left leg as he shifted his weight. "Double scotch. Neat." The words tumbled out before she could stop them. Habit. Muscle memory. Silas Blackwood paused, the cloth hovering over the tumbler. His hazel eyes, sharp and intelligent despite the lines fanning out from the corners, lifted to meet hers. He didn't smile. He didn't gasp. He just looked, his gaze dissecting her face, tracing the new lines in her forehead, the sharper angle of her cheekbones. He reached for a bottle of single malt, turning it in his hand to read the label before pouring. "I thought you were still in Cardiff, burying yourself in law books." "I dropped out." She watched the amber liquid splash into the glass. "Years ago." Silas slid the drink across the wood. The silver signet ring on his right hand caught the light, winking in the dim room. "So I heard." He limped around the end of the bar, settling onto a stool a few feet away. He didn't offer his hand. He didn't need to. The distance between them felt charged, heavy with the things that hadn't been said. "You look tired, Laila." The alias hit her like a physical blow. It was the name he used when she was a child, sitting on the floor of her father’s study while Silas and Brendan whispered over maps and files. Before she became Rory. Before she became anyone else. "I’m alive." "Alive is a low bar." "It’s raining outside. The bar is empty. The bar is relative." Silas huffed a short breath through his nose, not quite a laugh. He signalled the barback—a gangly kid in an apron who looked terrified of him—to take over the taps. When they were alone again, he turned his full attention to her. "The last time I saw you, you were running. Eva told me you caught a train to Paddington with nothing but a backpack and a bad attitude." "I had to get out." "Leaving without a word tends to suggest that." Aurora took a drink. The scotch burned, a clean, searing heat that settled in her stomach. She needed that heat. She looked at the walls of the bar. Black-and-white photographs of old London, maps of the world with red string stretched between points that probably meant nothing to the regular patrons. It was exactly the kind of place a man like him would retire to. A watchtower disguised as a watering hole. "You haven't changed," she said, gesturing to the maps with her glass. "Still playing spy games in the dark." "Knee doesn't let me play much anymore." He tapped his left leg. The thud was dull. "Prague. Bad exit strategy. Now I pour drinks and listen to people who think they’re important." "And are they?" "Rarely." The silence stretched, filled only by the rhythmic drumming of the rain against the windowpane. Aurora traced the rim of her glass. She wanted to leave. She wanted to stay. She wanted to ask him if he knew about Evan, if he knew why she really ran, if he had been the one pulling strings to make sure her ex never found her. But asking meant admitting weakness. Admitting that the cool, collected woman sitting here now was a fabrication built over a foundation of fear. "I live upstairs," she said, the words sudden and blunt. Silas’s eyebrows shot up. He turned on his stool to face her fully. "The flat above the delivery entrance?" "Move-in was today." He stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, a small, genuine smile touched the corner of his mouth. It transformed his face, softening the hardened edges of the retired operative. "And here I thought it was just the rats making that noise on the floorboards." "Funny." "You always did have a terrible sense of humour." "I have a fine sense of humour. You just have no appreciation for irony." "Irony is walking into a bar run by your old handler to hide from the world." "You weren't my handler. You were my dad's friend." "Same difference." "It isn't." She gripped the glass tighter, her knuckles white. "You people—my father, you—you always talked about the greater good. The mission. Keeping the world safe. You forgot about the people living in it. The people who got broken when the mission went sideways." Silas didn't flinch. He didn't look away. He reached for a bowl of peanuts on the counter, cracking one between his fingers before popping it into his mouth. "You're angry." "I'm not angry. I'm realistic." "You're angry because you thought you could run away from who you are, but you ended up right back where you started. A stone's throw from the Nest." "I'm not 'who I was.' I'm not that scared little girl in the study anymore." "No." His eyes dropped to her left wrist, exposed by the sleeve of her jacket riding up. The small, crescent-shaped scar was pale against her skin. "You aren't. You're something else now." She pulled her sleeve down. "You don't know anything about me, Silas. You don't know what I've done. What I've had to do to survive." "I know you're sitting in my bar. I know you didn't walk out when you saw me. I know you ordered scotch instead of running for the hills." He leaned forward, the light from the green neon sign washing over his face, making him look ghoulish and kind all at once. "You can't outrun your shadow, Rory. No matter how fast you run, or how far you go, it’s always attached to your feet." "I learned to walk in the dark." "Can you?" He challenged her, his voice dropping an octave. "Can you really?" Aurora stared at him. The familiar cool detachment she wrapped around herself like a shroud felt thin, fragile. Under Silas’s gaze, under the weight of seven years of silence, she felt the cracks forming. She thought of the boxes upstairs, the empty room, the phone she hadn't turned on in three days. She thought of the way her father looked at her before she left. Disappointed. And the way Silas looked at her now. Expectant. She finished her drink, the ice clinking against her teeth as she swallowed the last drop. She placed the glass firmly on the coaster. "I’m not working for you." "I don't need a delivery girl." Silas stood, his knee popping loudly. "I need someone who knows when to keep her mouth shut." "I know plenty of places that hire for that." "But they aren't upstairs." She stood up, sliding off the stool. She was tall for a woman, but Silas still towered over her, his presence filling the room. She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders, shielding herself from the draft. "I'm going to bed." "Sleep well, Laila." She walked to the door, her hand on the brass handle. The cool metal seeped into her palm. She hesitated, her back to the bar. "The scotch was terrible." Silas’s laugh followed her out into the rainy night. "I'll buy a better bottle for next time." There wouldn't be a next time. She stepped out into the downpour, the green neon sign buzzing above her head like an angry insect. She looked up at the dark window of the flat above the bar. A home. Or a cage. She climbed the stairs, the water dripping from her hem, the taste of peat and smoke lingering on her tongue.