Anarchy | Book Two, The Genesis Series

Five

"I know you're not a fan of warm areas, but can we please turn the heat up a little?" Leo entreated, slightly shivering as he flopped down on the white, king-sized bed of the suite he and Amber both shared. "I'm serious. Like, I'm pretty sure Antarctica is warmer than this."

"So it's a little chilly." Amber chuckled, continuing to replenish her cut-resistant quiver with an assortment of special-purpose arrows. "If you can't handle the cold, then why don't you go back to tinkering in that little lab of yours?"

"Hey, I don't tinker." Leo countered with a shake of his head. "I build. I design. I'm an engineer. There's a difference, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say." Amber laughed, but her face soon reverted back to an overly-focused expression as she surveyed everything in her recently upgraded arsenal. Squinting, her cornflower-blue eyes checked off a plethora of invisible boxes in her cluttered mind.

She'd already equipped her specialized bio-enhancement suit, which she'd spent hours in The Lab's user-friendly interface customizing to perfection. White lines of nylon fabric-one of the most cold-resistant fabrics on the face of the earth-threaded themselves through the sleek, lightweight, semi-armored black mesh. A luminous, baby-blue snowflake emblem, which supplied her with a backup reserve of cryokinetic energy in case she became overwhelmed with heat, plastered itself onto the left chest area of the combat suit.

After folding her collapsible, black recurve bow, she mounted the compact weapon on the back of her cryo-suit, which was fitted with a magnetic holster. Her black, lightweight quiver, filled to the brim with a plethora of specialized arrows, lingered on her back near her right shoulder.

An exasperated sigh evicting itself from her throat, Amber placed both of her clammy, calloused palms onto the black, sleek surface of her desk. Packing really took a lot out of her-especially after a recovery training session with Agent Kingston. There were only so many push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups she could do before fatigue swallowed her body whole. She brushed a few strands of her sweat-saturated, cocoa-colored hair, which was wrapped up in a ponytail as usual, away from her lightly-freckled cheeks.

Cutting her doe eyes over to Leo, a pillow-soft blush crept across her youthful features upon realizing her boyfriend's gaze lingering on her like a heavy cloud.

"What're you staring at me for, sparkplug?" Amber slyly asked, a reddish hue creeping across her grinning face.

"Just admiring the view, that's all." Leo replied, smirking as he stood up from their mattress, sauntering over to the archer.

Wrapping his hands around her slim waist, he pulled the girl even closer to him as Amber melted into his arms. Their foreheads touched, feeling each other's warm, curling breaths. In a hopeless world filled to the brim with war, peace was all that they felt in those few seconds as they lost themselves in each other's mesmerizing gazes.

"You know, as big of a tech-wiz as I am, I really wish I didn't have to go on this trip." Leo uttered, his silvery voice barely an octave above a whisper.

"I wish I didn't have to go, either." Amber agreed, smirking. "But we have a job to do, sparkle fingers."

"I know, I know." Leo sighed as he brushed a few strands of the girl's hair out of her face. "Everything alright, though? You look a little unnerved."

Amber swallowed hard, her smile melting into a small frown as she averted her gaze to the carpeted floor. No matter how much she attempted to conceal her own thoughts and feelings, Leo always managed to see right through her facade. Something was gnawing at her insides; devouring them like a virulent, baneful acid.