Toxic Snow | TBW #2 [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter One

ONE

I was thankful that I wasn’t a cold blooded animal.

If I was, I’d definitely have been dead by now. That’s how cold it was.

I shivered under my jacket as Archer demonstrated a fairly complicated defense move that he’d learned from one of the senior members of the Fraternity back when he’d first been initiated into the group.

“Just turn your foot out a little. It helps maintain balance.”

I nodded and proceeded to mimic the move he’d just shown me, pushing my thoughts of hot chocolate and warm beds aside.

We were on the roof of the Fraternity Headquarters, an old pillow factory that had been abandoned somewhere around the turn of the century. It was a wonder that it hadn’t been torn down yet.

“Why are you so stiff?” Archer barked. “Loosen up!”

I gritted my teeth to prevent all the biting comebacks that had leapt into my mouth from spilling out. Archer didn’t mean to be harsh. He was just trying to teach me to defend myself in case I came up against Mirah again.

Mirah Thames was Archer’s ex-girlfriend – the woman who broke his heart. She was also Grigor Stanislaus’ right hand girl and the assassin who’d tried to murder my fourteen year-old cousin Kayley, and my best friend Milo. Needless to say, I had a lot of beef with her. The fact that she tried to kill me and Archer too, didn’t really soften my feelings towards her, either.

“No, Alexis.” Archer’s gruff voice broke through my thoughts. “You’re still too stiff. You’re doing it wrong.” He stepped closer to me and grabbed my hand. “Let me show y—” He broke off and looked down at me in surprise. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m fine. Just show me how to do it.”

He released his hold on my arm and gently placed his hands on my shoulders. “Are you cold?”

“I’m fine, Archer. Really.”

“You’re such a bad liar, Alexis.” His hands slid down my shoulder and up and down my arms, trying to warm me up. Funnily enough, I was actually feeling a lot warmer since he arrived at my side. It was probably his body heat. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

“But my training—”

“Can wait until tomorrow.” He said calmly as he wheeled me over to the staircase and hauled me back into the building. “I’m not going to let you get hypothermia.”

“I’m not going to catch hypothermia, Archer. I need to practice.”

“Alexis, we practice for hours every day.” He chided softly as he pushed me though the iron doors of the conference room. “One day off isn’t going to hurt anybody.”

I sighed in defeat as we made our way through the conference chamber. I’d only been inside the dark, dank, eerie chamber once before – about a month after our encounter with Mirah and her hen-pecked boyfriend, Oscar; when Archer and I were finally out of our casts and could go on active duty.

“This isn’t the first time that a vengeful family member has tried to take down the Fraternity.” Rupert had said.

“It’s happened before? When?”

“Long before you were even born, Sister Frost.” Rupert replied. “I was only a third rank member myself.”

“They didn’t try to take out your family members, did they?”

“No. They tried to take us out.”

Archer had given me sharp jab in the ribs to remind me that I had to close mouth. By the time I had realized what he telling me to do; he had already asked Rupert a question. “How did they find out about the Fraternity?”