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.

Samson was glaring at Todd. He crossed his arms across his chest and Ren watched as Todd bit down on his bottom lip to stop himself from continuing to laugh.

"It's not funny," he snapped at Todd. "I'm serious."

"Oh, I bet you are," Todd said continuing to chuckle. "Are you on some kind of vacation right now?"

Samson looked back quickly over his shoulders. A few Rats sparked confused looks from Todd's laughter, it was a sound that was rarely ever heard inside the farm. Samson grabbed the collar of Todd's uniform and pulled him in closer. Ren leaned back in.

"No," Samson said in another harsh whisper. "They kicked me out after the assassinations. They sent me straight to this hellhole. They thought I would die in the first couple weeks."

"B...B...But you h...h...hav...v...ve-" Ren tried to say.

"I've only been at this farm for a couple months," he cut her off. "Before that I was at another farm. It was closer to Royale so they had way too many Rats working there. They sent me here when it became too full. They wanted to get rid of the older ones."

"Tegan would have only been in his twenties. You're only in your twenties. That isn't old," Todd whispered.

"I may be young, but I had been there for over ten years. I had been there longer than most Rats. They believed that they had worn me out."

"Why wouldn't have you told anyone who you really are?"

"Because who would believe me. They would just think I'm another crazy Rat. And they probably already know who I am. I was sent here, so if I don't stay quiet they'll kill me for sure. Wouldn't look very out of the ordinary would it, eh?"

Ren was starring at Todd intensely. He was focused on Samson and then he cast his bright blue eyes over to her. Samson was very paranoid and was continuing to look over his shoulders. Todd quickly shook his head when Samson wasn't looking at them. She nodded in agreement.

She had no idea why she did. She had only known Todd for a couple days, but for some odd reason she had a lot of faith in him. He had helped her up when the Officer was screaming at her, but she suspected that that was just a rookie mistake. If he had been to another camp before, he most likely wouldn't have done that. Samson's story seemed unlikely to her too, so she wasn't shocked that Todd disagreed with it.

"So?" Samson said looking back at them. "Can I join?"

"No," Todd told him.

"What?" he snapped. His voice was much louder now. Ren noticed that a couple of Rats turned their head to look at them. "Are you crazy? Why wouldn't you? Don't you have any idea of the-"

A hand was placed on Samson's shoulder and ripped him out of the circle they had all made with their bodies. The drawings on the skin of the arm told Ren that it was Mitch even before she looked up. She felt a clump grow in her throat and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheeks as she looked up at him. He had a smirk, a look she always feared, on his lips. She was terrified; she didn't know how much of their conversation he heard.

"What are we talking about here?" he asked them.

Ren could feel her face go pale. Her ribs ached as a reminder from when the Officer kicked her. She knew that she was going to get hurt again tonight. Mitch never showed her any attention at night, unless he had planned to hurt her.

"The shifts tomorrow," Todd quickly lied.

"Oh really?" Mitch asked arching an eyebrow. "You know that you can't switch your shifts. You have to do what is given to you. You have no choice."

"Yes, we were talkin'-" Todd continued to lie.

"I want Ren to tell me," Mitch told them.

Ren opened her mouth and her tongue was dry. The lump building up in her throat was going to make talking even more difficult.

"W...w...we w...w...were talk...k...king ab...b...b...bout," she struggled to say. She was getting frustrated with herself. She was looking down at the mattress, but she could feel Mitch's smirk and stare burning through her skin.

"Come on, Ren," Mitch warned her.

"C...c...choic...ces," Ren spat out. She knew that Mitch was enjoying this but he would soon lose his patience. "I...i...i...if w...we got...t t...to c...c...choose."

"Oh! If you got to choose," Mitch said with a slight chuckle. "Well, you guys don't get any choices. Mr. Brenner chooses everything for you. He owns you."

The three of them sat there quietly. Ren noticed that Mitch still had his hand on Samson's shoulder. His face was flushed and he had his eyes shut tightly. When Mitch took his hand off of his shoulder, Samson opened up his eyes. Mitch turned on his heels and walked away from the group. Ren let out a deep breath and ran her hand over the stubble on her scalp. Mitch had left without physically hurting her.

Samson glared at both Ren and Todd. He pushed himself off of the bed.

"You two are going to regret this," he told them as he walked to his bed on the other side of the warehouse.

It was early in the morning when Shai tried to open Mikko's door. For the first time, she noticed that it was locked. Jasper reached out and tried opening the door himself. The door remained closed.

Shai lifted her hand and started to bang her fist on the door. There was still no answer.

"Mikko!" she shouted. She wasn't worried about any Officer hearing them. She banged on the door and continued to shout his name. Jasper leaned up against the brick of the house and watched her.

The door finally opened after a couple minutes. Mikko's mop of thick hair was sticking up in every direction. He had a red plaid bathroom tied around him by a piece of black string.

"Shai, darling, I think we need to set some boundaries," Mikko said letting out a yawn. "One being that if you knock on my door this early again, I will lock you in a cage."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're here now and we did what ya told us to last night. So we can get started now," Shai explained to him.

"There's not much we can do," he told her. "I have some steps needed before you can do anything. And believe it or not, a mind even as a great as mine needs time to warm up before it can do any effective work. Because you so rudely have awoken me, I need to wait a couple minutes. So either you can wait in my kitchen or on my front step. And either way don't eat my food."

They nodded their heads and Mikko pulled the robe tighter to his body. He turned around and stalked up the stairs. Shai and Jasper walked down the crowded hallway and into the kitchen. The sounds of Mikko scurrying around upstairs could easily be heard. Jasper pushed a box to the side and cleared a space off on the counter. He quickly sat up on top of it.

"How long do ya think this is going to take?" Shai asked as she reached down into one of the boxes. She pulled out red and black wires that were bundled together. The ends were frayed with a sharp light brown material that she had never seen before.

"It'll take him like no longer than an hour to get down here," Jasper guessed.

"No," Shai said rolling her eyes. Her bangs draped across her face provided her with camouflage so he couldn't see it. "How long it's going to take until we can leave for the camp? That's what I meant."

Jasper shrugged his shoulders.

"Couple days. Couple weeks maybe," he said.

"We don't have that long," she mumbled.

"I don't think there's a way to speed him Shai. Better not rush it. If we do it could go terribly wrong. Just wait a little bit and we'll all be safe."

"No," they all heard Mikko say. Jasper was staring at Shai as she was tracing the wires with her fingers, so neither of them saw him walk into the kitchen. Jasper was more surprised that he didn't hear Mikko walk down the stairs. Shai had turned so she was facing him.

"Nothing about this plan is safe," he continued explaining. "Don't ever think that. Nothing is remotely safe about it. You're use to being in constant danger, everyone in the Slums is, so don't start thinking of this as some sort of safe haven. And stop touching my stuff."

Shai quickly put the wire back into the box and Jasper slid off of the counter.

"You're wrong though," Mikko told Jasper. "While you two were out I was already working at cracking the system. Be ready to leave tonight."