Run: 2026-02-19-01KHVPG9E4T5XZ25E5KV1V5080

Rain lashed the pavement outside The Raven's Nest. The distinctive green neon sign buzzed, casting a sickly emerald hue through the fogged windows. Inside, the air smelled of stale hops and damp wool. Rory traced the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. She sat at the mahogany bar, staring at a framed black-and-white photograph of a 1940s street sweeper. Silas dragged his bad leg down the length of the bar. His silver signet ring clacked against a fresh pint glass. He set down a dark stout in front of Rory. "Rough shift?" He leaned forward, elbows planted on the varnished wood. His grey-streaked auburn beard brushed the collar of his flannel shirt. "Yu-Fei had me hauling lo mein to Canary Wharf. The rain soaked right through the thermal bags." "Drink. On the house." The heavy oak door swung open with a groan. A gust of wind scattered a stack of damp napkins. Rory turned. A woman stood in the threshold. She shook out a beige trench coat. Rainwater slid off the water-repellent fabric, pooling on the worn floorboards. She pushed wet blonde hair out of her eyes. Her boots clicked against the hardwood with military precision. She scanned the room, gaze sweeping over an old yellowed map of pre-war Berlin tacked to the opposite wall. Her eyes locked onto Rory. Rory gripped the edge of the bar. The last time she saw Eva, they sat on the floor of a cramped Cardiff bedroom, crying over a busted lip and a packed duffel bag. Eva had worn a torn band t-shirt and smeared eyeliner, shoving cash into Rory’s hands, begging her to get on the midnight train to Paddington. The woman standing by the door wore a silk blouse buttoned to the clavicle. A thin gold chain rested against her throat. Her posture held none of the frantic, messy energy of the Cardiff girl. "Rory." "Eva." Silas picked up a rag. He wiped down the beer taps, keeping his back angled toward them. Eva approached the bar. She carried a structured leather handbag, placing it deliberately on the empty stool next to Rory. She smelled of expensive bergamot and sterile hotel lobbies. "You cut your hair. It’s straight now." Eva gestured to Rory’s shoulder-length black hair. "Less for him to grab." Eva flinched. The muscles in her jaw tightened. She slid onto the stool, crossing her ankles. "I wasn't sure you still lived in the city. Let alone above a place like this." Eva drummed perfectly manicured nails against the bar top. "I had a meeting in Soho. The navigation app sent me down the wrong alleyway to avoid the flood on Wardour Street." "Silas owns the building. I rent the upstairs flat." "A landlord. How quaint." Silas turned. His hazel eyes fixed on Eva. The quiet authority in his stare stripped the condescension bare. "What are you drinking?" Silas rested his hands on the counter. "Vodka martini. Dirty. Three olives." Silas reached for a bottle of clear liquor. Rory took a sip of her stout. The bitter foam coated her top lip. She swiped it away with the back of her hand. "You hate olives. You used to pick them off the pizzas at Luigi's and flick them at the waitstaff." "Tastes change. People grow up." Eva stared straight ahead at the mirrored back-bar. Silas set the martini glass down. The liquid sloshed against the rim. He retreated to the far end of the bar, pulling an inventory ledger from under the counter. "I called you. After the first six months." Rory spun her stool a fraction to face Eva. "I changed my number. Work policy." "You didn't give me the new one." "You needed a clean break. Cardiff was a black hole. Evan was a black hole. I pulled you out, but I couldn't drag you down with my own mess." "What mess, Eva? You look like you feature in a brochure for offshore banking." Eva picked up the martini glass. Her hand trembled, a microscopic vibration causing the green olives to bob in the clear liquid. She took a long, sharp swallow. "My father got sick." "Brendan told me. Pancreatic." "He died a year after you left. The debts rolled over onto my mother. I dropped out of uni." Rory lowered her eyes to the bar. The crescent scar on her wrist throbbed, a phantom ache from the day they fell off the rusted swings behind the Ellis house. "You should have called me. I would have come back." "No." Eva snapped the glass down onto a cardboard coaster. "You would have run right back into Evan’s orbit. I watched you pack that bag. I watched you cover the bruises with foundation. I didn't send you away just to pull you back into the rot." "So you just excised me. Like a tumor." "I survived. Same as you." "You didn't have to do it alone." "Neither did you." Eva traced the condensation on her glass. "Yet here you are. Working delivery gigs. Hiding in a buried pub." "I like it here. It's safe." "Safe is just another word for stagnant. Are you still pursuing pre-law?" "I dropped the books a long time ago." "Wasted potential." "Look in the mirror, Eva. You wanted to be a veterinarian. You spent your weekends rescuing stray cats from the docks. Now you wear dead calves on your feet and order drinks you don't even like." Eva touched the gold chain at her neck. The metal caught the green light from the window. "I work in acquisitions for a development firm. We buy out failing businesses. Strip them down. Sell the assets." "You evict people." "I liquidate redundancies." "Listen to yourself. You sound like a textbook." "The textbook pays the mortgage on my mother's subsidized flat. The textbook pays for the bergamot perfume and the leather shoes." Rory pushed her stout away. The dark liquid settled, reflecting the dim brass pendant lights overhead. "Do you even recognize the person you are right now?" Eva stared at the empty space beside Rory. Her expensive facade cracked, revealing the exhausted, hollowed-out girl underneath. "I recognize the security. I go to sleep knowing nobody is going to break down my door demanding money. I don't have to check the locks three times. I don't have to keep an emergency bag under the bed." "I don't keep an emergency bag anymore." "No. You just live on top of a fortress." Eva gestured to Silas at the end of the bar. "With a retired watchdog to bare his teeth at strangers." Silas didn't look up from his ledger. He flipped a page. The rustle of paper cut through the hum of the neon sign. "He's a good man. He helped me when nobody else did." "I helped you." "And then you abandoned me." Eva squeezed her eyes shut. The harsh lines around her mouth deepened. "I was twenty-one, Rory. I watched my best friend get beaten half to death for four years. Then I watched my father waste away to ninety pounds in a hospital bed. I didn't have anything left to give you. My well ran dry." "A letter would have cost you nothing. A postcard. A text. Just to tell me you were breathing." "If I reached out, you would have heard it in my voice. You would have heard the panic. You would have gotten on the first train west." "I would have supported you." "You would have drowned with me." Eva reached into her handbag. She pulled out a sleek leather wallet, extracting a crisp fifty-pound note. She laid it next to the martini glass. "I shouldn't have come in." "You needed shelter from the rain." "I just saw the green sign. I didn't know you were here." "You knew I lived in Soho. You knew I worked around here." Eva stood. The stool scraped against the floorboards. She pulled the lapels of her trench coat together. "Keep the change." Eva leveled a glance at Silas. Silas closed the ledger. He walked down the bar, his limp pronounced in the tight space. He picked up the fifty-pound note. He slid it across the wood, right back to Eva's hand. "Drinks are three pounds fifty. Your friend already covered your tab." Silas tapped his signet ring against the mahogany. "Take your money." Eva looked at the note. She looked at Rory. "I have to get back to the hotel. My firm booked me a suite at the Savoy." "Enjoy the minibar." "Rory. Don't do this." "Do what? You're the one walking out the door. Again." Eva reached out. Her fingertips brushed against the small crescent scar on Rory's left wrist. The skin contact sparked a jolt of static electricity. Eva pulled her hand back, curling her fingers into a fist. "I missed you." "I missed the girl from Cardiff. I don't know the woman from the Savoy." "She’s just wearing armor. Same as you." Eva turned. Her boots clicked against the floorboards, a steady, retreating drumbeat. She pushed the heavy oak door open. The wind howled, blowing the rain horizontally across the threshold. The door slammed shut, cutting off the storm. Rory stared at the half-empty martini glass. The three green olives sat at the bottom, distorted by the curved glass. Silas picked up a rag. He wiped away the condensation ring left by Eva’s drink. "Connections sever. It's the nature of survival." "She looked at me like I was a museum exhibit." "She looked at you like a mirror. People detest reminders of the reflections they shattered." Rory picked off one of the soaked olives from Eva's glass. She rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. "We used to throw these at the boys who stared at us too long in the pizza parlor." "Fetch me a fresh glass, Rory. The stout is running warm." Rory carried her glass around the bar. She stepped behind the counter, navigating the narrow space next to Silas. She dumped the stout down the brass basin drain. The dark liquid spiraled into the plumbing. Silas pulled a fresh pint glass from the rack overhead. He angled it under the tap, pulling the heavy ceramic handle forward. "Did you break ties when you left Prague?" Rory leaned against the counter. "Prague broke the ties for me." Silas tapped his stiff left knee. "When the bone split, the career snapped with it. I lost the network. I lost the clearance. I became a liability. A ghost haunting a hospital ward." "You built the Nest." "I built a cave. Same thing your friend accused you of." Silas set the full pint on a napkin. "We build structures to keep the draft out. Sometimes we lock the doors so tight, the air goes stale. We forget how to breathe outside the walls." "I breathe just fine on my deliveries." "Carrying lo mein for Yu-Fei is motion. Not momentum." Rory grabbed the pint. She stared at the black-and-white photo of the street sweeper. "Eva orchestrated my escape. She handed me the train ticket. She packed the duffel. She stood between Evan’s fists and my face twice." "Debt is a heavy shackle." "I don't owe her money. I owe her my life." "And she resents you for it." "Why would she resent me for saving me?" "Because you got away." Silas polished the mahogany until the wood gleamed. "You escaped the black hole. She stayed behind and got swallowed." The green neon sign flickered outside. A sharp buzz rattled through the windowpane. The rain intensified, drumming a chaotic rhythm against the glass. "She buys businesses to gut them." Rory gripped the cold glass. "She fires people for a living." "A sterile world is an orderly world." "I can't picture her doing it. The Eva I knew refused to kill spiders. She trapped them under plastic cups and carried them outside in the freezing cold." "The world steps on the girls who save spiders." Rory took a sharp breath. The stale hops burned her throat. She set the drink down, turning her gaze to the empty stool. The scent of bergamot still lingered in the damp air, battling the smell of cheap beer and old paper. "I want to go after her." Silas stopped wiping the bar. He tossed the rag over his shoulder. "Do you want to go after the woman who just walked out, or the girl from Cardiff?" Rory pushed her hair back. She stared at the fifty-pound note still resting on the wood. "I don't know." "Figure it out before you open that door." Silas pointed a thick finger at the heavy oak exit. "Because if you chase a ghost into the rain, you catch a cold and nothing else."