The Lost by Caridad Piñeiro

line of Kellen’s jaw. “What of the woman with the aura? What if she is one of the Shadows?”
    With a careless shrug, Kellen replied, “We do what we always do. We kill her.”

CHAPTER
6
     
    O ne of his security people had delivered a thumb drive with the video Adam had requested barely an hour after the incident. Adam slipped the thumb drive into his computer, then hesitated, his mind replaying that initial shocking jolt of power as the first man had laid hands on him. Would the video from the security system show that thunderbolt or any of the others that followed? he wondered while worrying about the secrecy of such a revelation.
    With a quick wave of his hand, the video began to play on the large-screen television at the far side of his office, and Adam rose to stand in front of it.
    The image of him leaving the building, absorbed in his phone messages, played on the screen. Shortly thereafter, the first glimpse of Bobbie, leaning against the car in a simple white T-shirt molded to ample breasts and curve-hugging jeans, grabbed his attention. The video had not picked up her intense cerulean aura.
    While the video had not documented the evidence of her power, it had recorded Adam’s initial reaction at his first glimpse of Bobbie, the quick glance followed by a slower obvious double-take. Part of it had been because of the waves of energy he had sensed surrounding her. But it had also been plain ol’ male appreciation: Bobbie Carrera was a very attractive woman.
    That thought fled quickly as he viewed each development on the screen. Even now, safe in his office, the memory of the men’s touch brought fear, making his gut clench and causing sweat to gather at the base of his spine. Very little on the video gave testament that there had been anything different about the men or about Bobbie.
    Except for possibly the streaks of light as he had intercepted the one man midair and then again when the men had disappeared into the van and raced away.
    Adam paused the video at that point with a sharp slash of his hand. Approaching the large-screen television, he realized that part of a license plate was visible. But you didn’t have to watch a lot of cop shows to know that either the cars or the license plates involved in crimes like these were usually stolen.
    Adam shut off the television and returned to his desk, frustrated that the recording hadn’t yielded anything new or valuable.
    As he plopped into his chair, he thought about all the possible reasons for the attack.
    It hadn’t been a simple mugging. The first man had said that they wanted him, so it was more likely it had been a kidnapping, but why? Because he was like them or for some human kind of reason?
    Money? he considered. As of that morning, he wasworth close to ten million, thanks to a surge in the SolTerra stock price, but he wasn’t sure if someone would take such a risk in broad daylight. There were far richer people in the area, and without his approval, no one could move funds out of the various accounts in order to pay any ransom.
    A grudge? he thought, not that either he or his company had received any complaints against them. But then he recalled how distraught his father had been lately. Adam had thought the anxiety had to do with one of his father’s cases. But now, after what had just happened, it occurred to him that it was possible that his father had been aware of some kind of risk to Adam and had been keeping it a secret to avoid worrying him.
    There was only one way to find out, but before he asked Salvatore he had one other possibility to eliminate—that Bobbie was somehow connected to what had happened. It just seemed too convenient that she should be there with her aura at the same time as the two men with their obvious energy signatures.
    Adam turned to his computer. He closed his eyes and pushed forward with his energy, commanding the machine to begin a web search using just his power. Within moments he had gotten dozens of hits