Chapter 31 : The Unfair Advantage
Adalind opened her door and went pale.
"You look like death."
"I feel worse." I leaned against her doorframe, barely upright. Scalpel's emergency treatment had stabilized me, but walking across Portland in this condition had cost whatever reserves I'd built up. "Can I come in?"
She stepped aside, reaching to steady me as I entered. The contact was gentle, careful—nothing like the analytical distance she'd maintained in our early meetings.
"Sit. Before you collapse."
I made it to her couch before my legs gave out entirely. The wounds across my chest pulled with each breath, and the Siegbarste durability that had saved my life during the fight now worked overtime to repair damage that should have required weeks of recovery.
[STATUS UPDATE: INJURIES HEALING]
[ESTIMATED FULL RECOVERY: 72 HOURS]
[CURRENT COMBAT EFFICIENCY: 34%]
Seventy-two hours I didn't have. The Reapers were hunting. My first confrontation had proven what I'd feared—direct combat against der Scharfrichter was suicide, and der Richter's strategic mind made conventional traps useless.
"I need something they won't expect." The words came out hoarse. "Poison, curse, anything. You're a Hexenbiest. You must have options I don't."
Adalind stood at her kitchen counter, preparing something I couldn't see. When she turned back, she carried a glass of dark liquid that smelled medicinal.
"Drink this first. It'll help with the pain."
I drank. The taste was bitter, complex—the kind of potion that Rosalee would have spent hours preparing, compressed into a single dose.
"The Reapers are resistant to most poisons." Adalind settled into the chair across from me. "They train against them from childhood. Inhaled toxins, contact agents, ingested compounds—they've built tolerance to everything commonly available."
"Uncommon options, then."
"Curses take time to prepare. Days, sometimes weeks, to gather components and focus intention." She shook her head. "We don't have that kind of time."
The pain was fading, replaced by the floating sensation of whatever was in her potion. I could think more clearly now, assess options without the distraction of my body screaming protests.
"Then what do we have?"
Adalind was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers traced patterns on the arm of her chair—nervous habit, the kind of thing people did when considering dangerous choices.
"There's something else." Her voice dropped. "Something I've never offered to anyone outside my bloodline."
[ALERT: NEW TACTICAL OPTION DETECTED]
[ADALIND SCHADE: SHARING RESTRICTED INFORMATION]
[RELATIONSHIP STATUS: SIGNIFICANT TRUST DEMONSTRATED]
"Tell me."
She stood and moved to a cabinet I'd never seen her open. Inside, arranged with obsessive care, were vials and pouches and containers of materials I couldn't identify. Her fingers found a small bottle of amber liquid, no larger than a perfume sample.
"Hexenbiests have a combat stimulant. Something we use in extreme circumstances—life or death, no other options." She held the vial carefully, like it might detonate. "It temporarily enhances reflexes, strength, pain resistance. For our kind, it's the difference between dying and surviving impossible odds."
"And for a Grimm?"
"Unknown." She met my eyes. "Grimms and Hexenbiests are physiologically opposed. The stimulant might enhance you the way it enhances us. Or it might kill you. I've never tested it on anyone outside my species."
The vial gleamed in the afternoon light filtering through her windows. Two doses, maybe three, of something that could save my life or end it.
"Why are you offering this?"
"Because you're going to die otherwise." Her voice cracked slightly. "The Reapers will find you, and they'll kill you, and everything you've built will fall apart. I'm not..." She paused, gathering composure. "I'm not willing to accept that outcome."
"Your mother would kill you for sharing this."
"My mother would kill me for breathing wrong. She's not here." Adalind pressed the vial into my hand. "This is me trusting you with something I've never trusted anyone with. Don't make me regret it."
The glass was warm against my palm. Such a small thing to carry such risk.
"If it kills me, the Reapers were going to anyway." I tucked the vial into my pocket. "At least this gives me a chance."
"We should test it first. A small dose—barely a drop. See how your body responds."
"Now?"
"When else?" Her voice was sharp with worry. "You can't walk into a fight with an untested compound. If you seize or go blind or your heart stops, I need to know now, when I can help, not when you're facing two master killers."
She was right. The tactical part of my brain acknowledged the necessity even as every other part recoiled from the risk.
"Small dose. Barely a drop."
Adalind retrieved an eyedropper and a clean glass. Her hands were steady as she measured—one drop of amber liquid, diluted in water.
"Drink. And tell me immediately if anything feels wrong."
The liquid was warm going down. For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then everything changed.
The room sharpened. Colors became more vivid, sounds more distinct. My heartbeat accelerated—not dangerously, but noticeably—and a rush of energy flooded through muscles that had been barely functional moments before.
[UNKNOWN ENHANCEMENT DETECTED]
[ANALYZING...]
[EFFECTS: ENHANCED REFLEXES (+40%), ACCELERATED PERCEPTION (+35%), PAIN SUPPRESSION (SIGNIFICANT)]
[DURATION: UNKNOWN]
[SIDE EFFECTS: CATALOGUING...]
I stood without thinking, the motion smooth and effortless. My injuries still existed—the healing wasn't accelerated—but the pain was distant, irrelevant. Every sense I possessed, natural and extracted alike, operated at peak efficiency.
"How do you feel?"
"Incredible." The word didn't cover it. "Everything is... clearer. Faster. I can hear your heartbeat from across the room."
Adalind's expression mixed relief with concern. "The enhancement should last between three and five minutes. When it ends—"
The crash came without warning.
One moment I was standing, cataloguing sensations, marveling at capabilities I'd never imagined. The next, my legs buckled. Nausea swept through me in a wave that threatened to empty my stomach. My hands shook uncontrollably.
Adalind caught me before I hit the floor.
"—the comedown is severe." She guided me back to the couch. "Your body burns through resources during enhancement. When it ends, you pay the debt."
[ENHANCEMENT TERMINATED]
[SIDE EFFECTS: EXTREME FATIGUE, NAUSEA, TREMORS]
[RECOVERY TIME: APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES]
[WARNING: MULTIPLE DOSES WITHIN 24 HOURS NOT RECOMMENDED]
I lay on her couch, shaking, feeling like I'd run a marathon while fighting a fever. The contrast between enhancement and aftermath was staggering.
"Three minutes." My voice came out weak. "I was enhanced for three minutes."
"Three minutes where you could match a Reaper's speed. Maybe even exceed it." Adalind sat beside me, her hand finding mine. "One dose during combat. Maximum. More will kill you—your heart can't sustain multiple enhancement cycles."
"One dose. One moment of advantage."
"Make it count."
The shaking gradually subsided. By the time I felt capable of standing, the afternoon had shifted toward evening. Adalind's medicine and the enhancement's aftermath had eaten hours I couldn't spare.
"I should go." I rose carefully, testing my balance. "The Pack needs to know the plan."
"What is the plan?"
"I'm still working on it." I touched the vial in my pocket. "But now I have something the Reapers won't expect. A Grimm who can move like a Hexenbiest for three minutes."
"Three minutes against centuries of experience." Her voice was flat. "Those odds are still terrible."
"Better than the odds I had this morning." I moved toward her door, feeling strength return incrementally. "Thank you, Adalind. For the trust. For the risk."
"Just survive." She didn't rise from the couch. "Whatever happens in that fight, survive. We have conversations we haven't finished."
I left her apartment with the stimulant warm against my chest. One dose. One chance. Three minutes of impossible capability that would either save my life or end it.
"Not much of a margin. But margins are what I have."
The evening air was cold, bracing, clearing the last of the enhancement's aftermath from my thoughts. Somewhere in Portland, two Reapers were hunting. Somewhere, Viktor was watching. Somewhere, my Pack was waiting for orders.
I had twenty-four hours, maybe less, before the Reapers forced another confrontation.
I intended to be ready.
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