Day 7

‘Riot! Riot, let me in.’

The pounding on Riot’s front door st! Riot, let me in!’

Sham had been pounding on Riot’s front door for a good two minutes by this point, and it seemed to be doing nothing for getting those footsteps to come over to the door.

‘Riot!’ he tried again, knocking harder than ever.

‘I’m coming!’ she replied, finally acknowledging his presence. Footsteps approached, and the door swung open.

‘Couldn’t’ve said that sooner?’

Riot said nothing, only standing aside to allow Sham to enter.

He stepped over to the centre of the living room area, but didn’t sit down. He didn’t know how long he’d be here, or if he was even welcome—and the amount of energy he’d had to expend just to get let in suggested that he wasn’t.

In the far corner of the open plan apartment, dirty dishes and cups were stacked upon the kitchen counter. A small red puddle—jam, perhaps—hadn’t been cleaned up, attracting a small stream of ants even on this high floor.

‘Everything alright?’ Sham asked, eyeballing the stacked plates.

Riot shrugged. ‘I don’t believe there’s any point cleaning when time will undo the mess in two days anyway.’

‘Yes, but I—’

‘Are you here for something?’ Riot asked. ‘Or just to comment upon my cleaning habits?’

‘I’m here to check in. That’s all. Sorry if I…’ Sham trailed off, suddenly feeling like he didn’t know quite what to say.

Riot raised an eyebrow, but her face otherwise remained stony, as though hiding her true feeling on the matter. She approached him, placing her hands delicately on his arms. ‘If you’ve been feeling lonely, that’s all you need to say.’ The woman pulled herself close, pressing her body against his, causing Sham’s to grow hot. His mind became clouded for a moment.

‘Easy, tiger…’ Recollection murmured.

‘No, I…’ Sham said. ‘I just wanted to know how you are.’

‘We’re at war, Sham, it doesn’t matter how I am.’ She pressed herself into him once more.

The resistance leader took Riot by the shoulders, pulling her back so he could see her face. ‘It matters. I need to know that you’re OK.’

Riot shrugged. ‘Are we going to bed, or are we not? You are in real danger of killing the mood.’

‘Riot!’ Sham found himself snapping.

The woman recoiled, taking a step away from him.

‘I want you to be real with me. For once. Can you do that? I know what that man was, alright? I just want you to tell me how you are.’

Any remaining joy faded from Riot’s face. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters! Are you OK?’

Riot flung her hands in the air, surrendering. ‘No. I’m not. Is that what you wanted to hear? Because you surely knew the answer, if you knew I was having therapy. Or did you think a happy person books sessions with a therapist who won’t remember you by the time of the next appointment?’

‘I just figured… I don’t know what I figured. I know you’re up to your own stuff. Your own quests. I found that boono vial, you know.’ Riot’s face grew pale. ‘I know you’re doing things. I just wish you’d tell me what. Is it about Kryl? Are you working on your own avenues with the Legion? Just tell us, Riot. Tell me.’

She shook her head, almost smiling. ‘You think you’re so smart, don’t you, Sham?’

‘I never said—’

‘But you don’t even see what that vial was.’

Sham took a step forward, closing the gap between them. ‘What? What is it?’

‘It’s Happiness, Sham. Just enough to get me through the day. There—seeing as you apparently have to know absolutely everything.’

Sham’s heart sank. ‘Happiness? You…’ He found himself lost for words, for just a moment. ‘Happiness. You’re doing that badly?’

Riot flung her hands into the air again, this time conveying a message more along the lines of, “Well, duh”.

‘You know,’ Sham said, forcing his voice gentle, ‘I really wish you’d told me sooner. I—’

‘How? How am I supposed to be vulnerable with you when I know the person you really care about is up in that tower?’

‘Is that what this is about? Hester?’ Sham watched as Riot’s mouth warped into a grimace. ‘And what do you mean, “vulnerable”? What have you been doing in there’ — he gestured to the bedroom — ‘if not making yourself vulnerable?’

‘That isn’t the same.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ Riot said. ‘That’s… that’s… I don’t have anyone, you see. I don’t have my brother any more, lost to this cult of monarchy as he is. And I thought the one person I did have—for all my sins—was you. But as it turns out, that isn’t true either. So, yes, I’m coping the only way I know how. And I’m doing it alone.’

Sham shook his head, taking a step closer to the woman. She stood her ground. ‘This is childish. You gonna cut me out of your life just because you heard about her?’

‘I cut you out of my life because I know you’d rather be with her. That you love her. That you love her more than you could ever love another living soul, even yourself.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Please, Sham. You sustained the Loop for her. To spare her life. And at what cost? You certainly didn’t consider me in that calculation.’

Sham stepped closer still, nostrils flaring, staring into the short woman’s eyes. ‘You can’t blame me for that. You can’t… You don’t…’

‘What, Sham, are you going to tell me that something’s changed? That you don’t love her?’

[HEART OF JANUS] MATTERS OF THE HEART: SUCCESS

You tell—

No. This is Riot. There’s no need to lie. Not to her.

‘I… I don’t know.’

Riot broke eye contact, turning away with a scoff, but Sham knew it was to disguise the water beginning to pool in her eyes.

‘She’s not the woman I loved. Not after… Not after what she did. But that doesn’t mean—’

‘Don’t, Sham. I don’t need to hear it.’

‘Then why ask?’ Sham responded, his voice strained. ‘Why obsess over it? Why make a whole big fucking deal about something where neither nor me actually know what we think? What we feel? And why the hell should Hester Cray make you feel this way?’

Riot’s mouth warped. ‘No, Sham. I told you. I cut you out of this because I know you’d rather be with her. But don’t for a second think that you are the source of my misery. You’re not that special. There was a time, once, when you knew that—back when you didn’t have delusion of being some hero of the people.’

‘What, then? If not that, what?’

Riot shook her head, and scoffed. ‘I can’t believe you have to ask.’

‘I—’

‘The same thing that will get us all in the end. The madness. The claustrophobia of time that comes from being forced to relive the same nine days ad infinitum. Or have you forgotten?’

‘It’ll end. Soon. I promise.’

‘How many?’ Riot asked.

‘Excuse me?’

‘How many more Loops? Can you answer that?’

Sham gulped. ‘Well, no. But we’re making good progress. Got two of the Legion dealt with—Lew Sawyer and Vince Perch. And we might have another one sorted soon. And you know what? We might even be further along if you’d bothered to show up occasionally.’

‘I—’

‘What? I have sympathies, Riot, I really do. I get that you’re not… I get that you’re not doing well. But your illness not being your fault and that not being your responsibility are entirely different things.’

Riot screwed her face into her hands and screamed a silent scream. ‘Oh, and you did the same, did you? When you were at your sickest? You tried to sort it out? Or did you just medicate yourself into Tartarus, the same as me?’

Sham opened his mouth to reply, but the words got stuck in his throat. Before he could gulp the blockage away, Riot had turned and spotted the expression on his face. Her own expression softened, somewhat. ‘That was different,’ Sham said. ‘That was…’

It was Riot’s turn for the words to get lost in her throat, her mouth opening and closing with no sounds made in the meantime. Instead, she reached for her jacket, slung over the back of the sofa, and pulled a glass vial from it. More of the same.

‘No, Riot, stop. Stop taking them. Boono, it… it only makes things worse, long term. I’ve seen what it does to people. You have to stop.’

‘Thank you, Sham, but I don’t need a father to tell me what to do. I’ve made it this far without one. You want it to stop? Then hurry the hells up and free us from this Loop.’ With that, she pulled the stopper from the vial and downed the liquid in one.

‘I can’t watch this.’ Sham turned away, facing the door. ‘I can’t watch another one of my friends do this to themselves.’

‘Please,’ Riot said, the harshness of her tone now faded away. ‘You need me. You need me for this Ms Weekes, and you need me for…’

The resistance leader heard the soft pat of clothes falling to carpet. He couldn’t lie; the idea was certainly tempting. But even for Sham Tilner, as lonely a soul as he was, this didn’t sit right. He wouldn’t… couldn’t with someone with a poor man’s joy in their system. He turned back to Riot just long enough to shake his head, then exited the apartment and closed the door firmly behind him.