The Valkyrie Returns and Slays (Raven)

Chapter 3

In a flash, a teenage girl, eighteen or so, stormed into view, decked out in sleek

black

gear.

The second the doctors laid eyes on her, their hearts skipped a beat.

She looked sharp, even lethal-way scarier than Dane Grayson ever dreamed of being.

Those icy eyes of hers pinned them in place, like their blood might freeze solid just from her stare.

The head doctor snapped out of it first, his face darkening.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" he roared. "Get out of-"

"Crack!" He didn't finish.

A scream tore out of him as he went flying, slammed into the wall by a brutal kick.

The nurse drawing Zach's blood gaped, wide-eyed.

One second the girl was at the door; now she was right there, looming over her.

nurse's hand tightened on the nearly full syringe, pure

then a small, steely hand clamped her wrist and twisted-gentle,

pain shooting up her

the room, shrill and

Valor didn't even blink. She yanked the needle free from Zach's arm

care.

the blood-processing machine

seconds, she had a fresh transfusion line ready, slipping the needle back into Zach's vein with

and the fog

fog in Zach's vision started

his soft voice even weaker now, sweet as melted

her picture. This girl didn't look exactly like it-older, harder-but something in

faltered on the syringe, just for a

her face-usually a frozen tundra-cracked open, a ray of

she murmured, voice soft.

her hand brushing his fluffy hair, rubbing his

Raven's longtime crew

the regular, sure-but they knew it was a mask, a con.

they gawked, a pack of burly

Dane Grayson stepped through, with this

clocked Zach's blood flowing back into him and sneered, "Well, isn't

he figured. People had forgotten what happened when

head toward his