“Better get to work,” a boy said to Gaia.

But the black-haired girl, who had been watching her narrowly, said, “I don’t know you.”

“No, you don’t,” Gaia agreed. She didn’t want to alert and panic the others, so she avoided a light show and simply swung a backhand that crushed the girl’s head and killed her instantly.

The bossy boy said, “What the—”

He dodged her first punch; her second one caught him a glancing blow that shattered his arm. He opened his mouth to scream, but he never had the chance. Her hand found his throat and crushed his larynx as easily as crushing a grape.

She tossed his body behind the bus, where it wouldn’t be seen by the kids now moving slowly across the field.

Light, Chapter 18