CHAPTER 2

Claudia strolled into the small roadside drugstore, her rain socked red hair sticking to her body and the drenched fur coat covering the blood covered blouse inside. She hoped no one noticed the small limp in the left leg. With the smudged makeup, slightly blackened eye and the split upper lip, she must look like a character from a disaster movie.

After randomly picking some band-aids and painkillers off the racks, she slowly limped towards the cash counter. She was almost next to the casher when she realized that she didn't have any dollars or any kind of money at hand.

Damn those stupid Verrat thugs, she must have dropped her purse during the fight. Now there's nothing she can do about it. It may already have been found by the police.

Maybe she can trade something for the meds. Her blue-grey eyes unwillingly shifted to the only valuable thing she currently had to her name.

No, No. It's Papa's. It's the last thing I have of him. Then the logical part of her brain whispered. You'll lose more than it if you failed to make this mission a success.

Alright, I knew this mission would be the death of me anyway, She thought as she removed the bracelet from her hand.

The sixty something owner of the drug store narrowed his eyes in suspicion when she limed herself over to the man. Hard to blame him, she thought, with her cloths drenched with the rain and her face bruised and swollen, she didn't look a bit like the rich, neat as a pin, fiery royal she used to be.

"Lady, is there a problem?" The bald man asked.

"Uh…..no problem," She said, trying to emphasize her European accent more. "It's just…..i, I just come here to US this morning and I don't have any dollars."

He didn't buy it; it was clear in the man's brown eyes. Shit, should have gone to a shop owned by a Wesen. They know how to respect and treat a Royal when they see one. Or, maybe they couldn't, there's no way he could have lived in this city without finding out about the secret if they were that astute.

"Look lady….I don't run a charity program here. You don't have money, you don't get meds. Now, leave before I call the cops, you look like you've been in a hell of a fight. I don't have time to go to courts or anything." His hand went under the counter table, probably to set off the alarm.

"No, please listen. I don't want any trouble either." Claudia reluctantly placed the bracelet over the cash counter. Its golden surface and the rubies carved into it glistened under the fluorescent light of the shop.

"Take this, I swear it's mine. I'll come tomorrow to take it back with the money to pay back for the meds."

"Looks really old." The man said, staring at the bracelet with awe filled greed. "But I can't take it, it might be stolen."

"No it's mine, its old I know….. It been handed down through the family for so long. I..I'll come back for it tomorrow."

The shop owner pushed the bracelet over the counter towards her with the sign sour grapes clear on his face. "Sorry missy, can't do that."

"I'll pay her bill." Claudia turned to see her white knight in shining armor tonight to be a meek looking short man. She could almost smell the fear in the air around him. It was clear by the way he nearly jumped out of his skin when she smiled at him. Most definitely Wesen, the man had no way of knowing who she was but he clearly knew what she was. Probably an Eisbiber, Mauzhertz or a lowly Reinigen. Nope, he didn't smell like the sewers, so probably just an Eisbiber.

"Bud, do you know her?" The shop-owner asked. The poor man just nodded his head, surely not trusting himself to say anything without shivering. She'd seen this behavior around lower-food chain Wesen before. They fear the Verrat as much as they feared the Grimms and Royals.

After he paid the bill Claudia followed him outside, wanting to thank the man. But it was like the man had vanished into the thin air.

Figures, just the typical lower Wesen behavior. They show you their face, they talk, they help depending on the situation and they bail on you at the first opportunity. Now she'll have to find the Grimm on her own. Hopefully the Eisbiber isn't a devoted member of Portland's resident Grimm's fast growing fan club. She didn't want to give him a head start. It would be damn hard to convince the boy to come with her if he knew she was coming. Element of surprise was very important when you are dealing with a Grimm, or so her papa used to say. But by one way or another, Nick Burkhardt will go back to Europe with her. Or else the whole Wesen community, maybe the whole world even, would be in a big bad trouble.

Not wanting to repeat the same awkward conversation again she protested her mind's desperate begging to hail for a Taxi. If a Drugstore owner was that bad, she'd have to trade her soul to get away with not having money to pay for about six miles worth of Taxi fare.

Walking Six miles like this, wow, good luck with that. She muttered. The annoying rain had stopped while she was inside the shop but it seemed the temperature had dropped few degrees. It must be hovering somewhere around freaking zero now. It would be a bloody miracle if she didn't lose few of her fingers to frostbite before the end of this day. Maybe if she appeared frozen like a Popsicle in front of his house the Grimm would take pity on her and listen to what she had to say before chopping her head off. She gathered up all her courage and started limping through the sidewalk.

I swear, the next chapter will have more than 2000 words.