Brianna was up in a flash, snapped her shotgun up, fired, and hit Gaia in the chest with a load of buckshot that knocked Gaia staggering back with seven small holes in her.

Brianna rushed, yelling, “Die!” stuck her shotgun into the stunned Gaia’s mouth, and pulled the trigger.

And there was no explosion. Dud shell.

Brianna’s one good eye widened and Gaia’s hand was on her neck. Impossible to get away. Brianna swung her machete, but the angle was all wrong, so she caught Gaia’s neck, too low and too weak. Blood was everywhere.

But Brianna’s head was woozy. The weakness was spreading through her.

She struck again, and Gaia easily blocked this blow, ripped Brianna’s machete from her hand, and threw it aside.

Gaia’s face, those cold blue eyes, were all Brianna could see. But she felt Gaia’s hand pressing palm-out against her heart and knew . . .

“NO!” Dekka screamed.

  But there was a hole burned right through Brianna. A smoking hole where her heart should be.

Brianna’s body fell limp. Suddenly so small.

Gaia fell back, touched the buckshot wounds, but then realized the arterial spray from her neck was the bigger problem. She was bathed in her own blood.

“NO!” Dekka screamed again, and charged, with Orc at her side, with Jack suddenly yelling, rushing up from the side of the road, all straight at Gaia.

Gaia fired the killing light but missed, and now retreated in confusion, her already weak vision blurred by her own blood.

She tried to turn on her speed, but she felt it ebbing. Of course: she had just killed the girl with the power of speed! She’d had no choice: another few seconds and she herself would have been dead.

Light, Chapter 22