Anarchy | Book Two, The Genesis Series

Five

In truth, her thoughts wouldn't budge beyond Creed's bombshell of an announcement.

Her white fingernails delved into her cold-resistant skin as she recalled the secretary's nerve-wracking presentation. The harrowing speech alone had seemed bad enough, but in addition, there was just something about Creed that rubbed her the wrong way. His faded, seemingly lifeless irises seemed to house nothing more than a carcass on the inside.

The segment pertaining to the various errors their task force had made over the years was grinding her gears in particular-even if the man had only highlighted a couple of them.

In truth, there was a lot more behind those botched missions than Creed was willing to point out. Their assault on a Primus base in Ohio-the first highlighted example-had occurred back when their inexperienced team had stowed away on a jet and attempted to confront Elias and the rest of the Elites under the control of Primus.

Though, calling them a team was mighty generous. Back then, they'd been nothing more than a small group of moody teenaged rookies who'd barely known each other. A slip-up or two shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. In fact, it had taken them nearly a year to mold themselves into the well-oiled peacekeeping machine they were today.

The bottom line was that if Creed and his government buddies were expecting perfection from their team 100% of the time, they were blatantly setting themselves up for disappointment. Even the most skilled and powerful of society were prone to making mistakes.

No one was perfect. Not even them.

Creed's protocol seemed to neglect that fact.

"You think?" Amber softly chuckled, turning away from her partner as she twirled one of her arrows. "I mean, a conference highlighting everything you're doing wrong doesn't really make for the best pre-mission motivation."

"Yeah, I could tell you weren't all that into it." Leo replied, smirking. "You were making that stank face you always do when you're annoyed."

Amber arched an eyebrow. "Stank face?"

"You know, when you scowl really hard and purse your lips and then your nostrils start flaring." Leo timidly explained, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's your stank face. You can thank Dylo for calling it that, by the way."

"Okay, first of all, I don't have a 'stank' face. That's not even a thing." Amber sighed, shaking her head. "Secondly, that's the least of my worries. If I'm being honest, that dumb protocol is what's really grinding my gears."

"Care to elaborate?" Leo asked, continuing to pile his crisp, folded clothes into his designated navy-blue and black duffel bag. The boy had always been a bit of a neat freak.

"Where do I start? The whole thing just sounds insane." Amber explained. "Look, preparedness is one thing, but the idea that anyone possessing powers should automatically be punished simply because they might do something is absurd."

"Well, Creed didn't say Elites would be punished." Leo replied, shrugging. "Just that their powers would be kept in check until they proved that they could be trustworthy members of society."

"And in Creed's eyes, the only way for them to become 'trustworthy' would be to join Genesis Industries." Amber shot back as she aggressively jammed her arrow into her quiver. "That means innocent people-our people-would essentially be forced into combat or be treated like walking nuclear warheads. I really don't see how that's helping his argument."

"To be fair, some of us are walking nuclear warheads." Leo swiftly countered, walking closer to her once more. "We're doing a good job and all, but some pretty terrible things have happened as the result of Elites, the whole Titus Island fiasco being just one of them."