Grimm Games

Chapter 26: Little Bandit

Like an adult house pet, the large rat sat at the threshold where the door of the safe house met the barnyard. He lowered his patchy head to place the lock of jet-black curly hair near the jamb and waited. The whiskers on his nose twitched as he licked at the fingers on his paws as if asking for food.

Spencer lowered the club and cocked his head at the creature. "You gotta be shitting me."

"Hey, sis?" Millie moved closer to the opened door before turning to me. "You have more of those protein bars?"

"Not much." I dug inside my makeshift pocket and pulled out a crumbled oatmeal bar to hand it to her. "After this one there's only one left."

She took the bar, unwrapped it, and took out a decent sized piece.

"You're not really gonna feed that thing, are you?" The look of disgust on Spencer's twisted face said a lot.

"The little guy is obviously hungry," Millie said. "I can't let it starve. Plus, it brought us a gift."

Spencer let out a scoff, his arms folding over his robust chest. "Might as well give it a name, huh? Seems like you're planning to adopt it."

Millie ignored Spencer and tossed a piece of the granola bar to the rat. The oversized rodent quickly gathered the morsel into his four-fingered paws, nibbled it into his mouth, and scurried away out of view as if satisfied.

Dylan moved closer to the lock of hair to get a better look. "That was...interesting."

"Is that Tobias' hair?" I chimed in, scrutinizing the bundle.

"Maybe?" Millie shrugged. "Could be Sonya's too. Could be anyone's." She gazed around the immediate vicinity as if being careful of the Troll, Sonya or any other possible nearby threat waiting for us to let our guards down.

Spencer shook his head. "The real question is, what are we supposed to do with a few strands of hair?"

"I don't know." Millie stared at it. "Maybe the rat wanted to give us something in exchange for food and chose hair."

"That's weird." Spencer scratched the hairs at his temple subconsciously." The rats I've seen aren't that clever. But they're smart enough to stay hidden from humans."

"Maybe these are like crows." Jade pointed to the lock of hair. "Crows are highly intelligent and remember a person's face forever. If you treat one wrong, it'll communicate to other crows that they should stay away from you. But the opposite too. If you give them treats, they respond by giving you gifts."

I nodded. "I've heard of something like that before. They can figure out simple puzzles and find solutions to problems to get food. They even create and use tools. Mix that with Arcanum's genetic engineering and maybe we got ourselves an intelligent rat."

Dylan scoffed dismissively. His tone was laced with a bit of skepticism. "You guys act like that thing will be joining us at the poker table, debating politics or something."

"Us?" I raised an eyebrow, catching the subtle hint of his willingness to form an alliance.

"I'm just saying." Dylan shrugged, dismissing the remark.

"I mean, that is preferred," I went on. "Us together can do so much, get so far—"

"One thing at a time." Spencer raised a hand to get our attention. "Intelligent or not, why would the rat bring us some clumps of someone's hair?"

"Maybe Tobias is nearby?" I speculated.

"Yeah," Millie agreed. "Nearby and dead. How long has it been since you've seen him?"