Rats: Shai's Story

Constant Danger

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone supporting this story!

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Ren noticed that Todd must have started to get hungry. Before, he would just push the food around in his bowl with his finger, which Ren enjoyed because she got what was left over, but now he was digging into it just like all the other Rats. He sat on the edge of her bed, and Ren assumed that she wouldn't be eating alone until he was gone.

"How'd this happen to you?" he asked her.

She furrowed her brows together as she dropped a clump of the food into her mouth.

"I mean, how'd you get arrested?" he said noticing her confusion. "What were doing?"

"B...b...bread," she tried to say. "Y...yo...ou?"

"I had taken jewels off of a table," he told her. Ren arched her eyebrow and let out a slight chuckle. It felt foreign to her. "Saying that makes me sound stupid, I know. I had been stealing since I was young. Most Rats do, but I mean I was so much greater than them. I've stolen jewellery before and have never gotten caught. It stopped Shai and I from being hungry."

"Sh...shh...shh," Ren wrestled with her tongue.

"Shai?" Todd guessed. "She was the girl I lived with. I met her years ago and taught her how to steal. Seems a little hypocritical since I'm here now."

"What are you two talking about?" Samson said as he sat down on the other edge of

Ren's bed.

He had on a fresh uniform. The pale brown of his old uniform was stained dark red thanks to the Grinder. He ran his hand over the prickle of dark hair coming out of the top of his scalp.

"Life before the farm," Todd told him.

"Oh! I loved life before this hellhole. I'm not designed to be here. No one is, but I know I have a greater destiny out there," Samson explained to them.

Ren and Todd exchanged odd looks to each other.

"And what kind of destiny would that be?" Todd asked wryly.

Samson looked over his shoulders quickly and examined the warehouse. He then snapped his head back towards them and his lips curled into a faint smile.

"If I tell you something, you can't tell anyone," Samson said in a harsh whisper.

Both Ren and Todd nodded their heads, and Samson motioned with his fingers for them to come closer. They leaned in and Samson looked back over his shoulders to make no other Rats or an Officer could hear them.

"See," Samson began to whisper to them. His voice was so soft that Ren was struggling to hear it. "I've heard you guys talking about escaping and I need to join your plans. I have the ability to change this. All of this. If I'm free I can get all of these Rats out of camps."

"How?" Todd whispered back.

"I'm Tegan Dyer."

Todd started to laugh and Ren had hit him in the shoulder with the back of her hand. She hadn't heard about the Archeys in a long time. Everyone knew about the assassinations, so she knew that it was impossible for Samson to be Tegan. He would have had a Royal file too. They wouldn't have thrown him into a camp.