The Suicide Project (Rebirth Book 1) (32 page)

I nodded my head in understanding, but I couldn’t help but wonder exactly
who
was monitoring this little event of ours. As if anticipating where my train of thought had gone, Sergeant Kami laughed ruefully and informed me, “The surveillance room is probably bursting at the seams right now. Since we told them that there were no guys allowed, naturally they
all
wanted to see what we were up to. I bet all of the male members of the military staff are crammed in that room right now, watching us all in here. It’s one of the reasons why we have half of the lights turned off, and also why none of us have taken off our robes yet.

I laughed uproariously at that as I glanced around and noticed that indeed, everyone was still wearing their robes. Tilting my head, my eyes pivoted around the room and took in 4 cameras located in each corner of the ceiling. I shrugged my shoulders and declared, “As if the presence of cameras are anything new…I guess I’ve gotten used to having them around for the past six months. But we have the added advantage because they can’t hear a blasted thing we’re saying. So I say, if the men want to look….let them look. They can look, but they can’t touch!”

I set my cocktail down and reached for the ties to my robe. Shrugging it off my shoulders, I revealed my black string bikini before tossing my robe onto the nearest chair. Harper eyed me up and down before letting loose a loud wolf-whistle. “Teagan, I’m not gay or anything but you have the type of bangin’ body that makes all women think about turning lesbian just to be near you.”

Allegra laughed loudly at that, and Jamie joined in as she eyed my body and admitted, “It’s true.”

“Whatever…you guys have great bodies too! Every single one of us in this room right now is healthy and in great shape. Come on….take off your robes and lemme see what your mamas gave you!” I waggled my eyebrows teasingly as I gestured for them to strip their robes.

While I waited, I turned to the side to pick up my cocktail and that’s when everyone caught sight of the large tattoo I had on my outer thigh. It started right below my hip and ended about 4 inches above my knee on my left leg. Everyone congregated around me as they stared at my tattoo and admired the detailed artwork. I was proud of it, but it had a different meaning to me now.
Now that I was a test subject in a secret military program run by the government.

Milkshake in hand, Kyrie squatted down next to me to get a closer look at my tattoo. “I didn’t even know you had this! It’s beautiful!” She traced it gently with her fingertip before quirking her head at me and asking, “What is it?”

“It’s a phoenix. I got it after I learned of my brother’s death. Dominic was my twin. It was at that moment that I realized I was all alone since everyone else in my family had already passed away. I went through a period of depression, but I got this tattoo as a reminder to myself to be strong, and that even though some crappy stuff happens in life sometimes, life still must go on. To me the phoenix represents new beginnings, so I decided to get it to help give myself courage to keep on going, even though I desperately felt like giving up. After all, I was in a serious relationship with my fiance’ Kyle and we had the rest of our lives ahead of us to look forward to. I used to think that Kyle was my own personal rainbow in a sky full of rainclouds.”

Ruefully, I grinned at everyone before admitting, “Six months later when I found out that my fiance’ had cheated on me with my best friend, it just became too much and I couldn’t deal with anything anymore. I felt so emotionally drained. Later, when I woke up here…I was disappointed and ashamed in myself for giving up. Actually, I was angry and utterly devastated that I didn’t dig deeper to find the inner strength to push past Kyle’s betrayal. I mean, people get cheated on all the time, right? And life still goes on….” I felt so exposed opening myself up to all the girls as a group, but I knew that if I wanted to get some questions answered, I needed to put myself out there and get used to confronting the mistakes of my past. After all, it
was
getting easier to get over the hurt the more I forced myself to talk about my feelings.

Looking each one of the girls straight in the eye, I confessed what I was truly feeling at that moment in an effort to cement the bonds of friendship that was starting to grow between us. I hoped by opening up, it would help put the others at ease enough to open up too.

“But in the past few months that I’ve been here, I have learned to forgive myself in my one moment of weakness. I can’t erase my mistake, so I’ve had plenty of time to deal with it and get over it. I’m now at peace with my actions that have brought me here, and I’ve learned to love myself again. When I look at my tattoo now – it represents rebirth.
My
rebirth, because I know I’m not the same woman I was when I first arrived here. And you know what? I’m 100% okay with that!” My smile was genuine as I looked around the room at everyone.

“Besides, if I hadn’t tried to off myself, then I wouldn’t be standing here right now with all of you awesome women! Come on guys… let’s lighten up the mood a little. It’s time to get our swim on!” I laughed at myself in an attempt to shrug off my awkward joke about offing myself.

Kyrie hesitated for a few seconds before she flung her arms around me in a quick hug. Then wordlessly, she turned and grabbed Marisol’s hand and together they both walked to the shallow end of the pool before flinging off their robes and jumping in with squeals of delight. “Hey! The water’s warm!”

Grinning, I crossed my arms over my chest and raised an eyebrow at the other four women before saying, “Well? I’m waiting! Do you all need some mood music before you can strip out of your robes or something?”

I slowly danced my way over to the stereo to turn up the volume, as I sang along to the popular sultry song that was currently playing. When I turned back around, to my surprise the ladies were all still standing right where I left them, all with bemused smiles frozen on their faces. Shockingly, I could see faint blushes on Jamie and Harper’s faces. I couldn’t help myself…I threw back my head and emitted a mock evil laugh as I rubbed both hands together with glee.

Turning back around, I grabbed up the 5 shot glasses I had spied earlier, and filled them with tequila. Thoughtfully, there were wedges of limes in a bowl right next to the tequila.
Amos….what a swell guy!
I continued gyrating in place as I turned back around and motioned for the ladies to come closer. This time, Harper and Allegra laughed as they saw what I was up to. Once all five of us were standing in a circle and each had a shot glass of tequila in hand, I raised mine up and shouted above the music.

“Repeat after me! I’m a beautiful and sexy woman, and I want the whole world to know it!” Grinning from ear to ear, the others all copied my lead in between bubbles of laughter.

“I’m a beautiful and sexy woman, and I want the whole world to know it!!”

We all cheered noisily before I raised my hand and said, “On the count of three, down the hatch! One….two….three!!”

I knocked back my shot and shuddered before grabbing for a wedge of lime, as the others all grimaced and scrambled for limes too.

“Alright! Now! Robes off, and into the pool! Last one in is a rotten egg!” Laughing like a maniac, I raced to the pool and dove in cannon-ball style. Kyrie and Marisol were floating in the middle of the pool with round inflatable floaters around their waists, just watching us with amused grins on their faces. The looks on their faces when they saw me running for the pool was priceless as they realized what I was going to do. A wave of water splashed over them just like I planned, and the duo started shrieking with laughter before trying to swim after me as I headed for the deeper end of the pool.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Harper and Allegra jump in with dainty little splashes, followed by Jamie and Sergeant Kami. From the corner of my eye I saw movement, and turned just in time to see Mercer leap in from the opposite side of the pool. He doggie paddled right past Sergeant Kami, as he swam a direct path to me. Since she didn’t say anything about it, I figured it was probably fine that he was in the pool too. Besides, I remembered that Jamie had told me to bring Mercer along with us.

Happily, I floated on my back while I waited for Kyrie and Marisol to catch up. When a few minutes passed by and they were still nowhere near me, I raised my head to see what the holdup was… and saw that they had refused to let go of their floaters. Chortling, I yelled, “You can’t swim properly with those things around your waists!”

“Pfffft… if I let go of my floater, I’ll die!” Kyrie was staring at me with a panicked look in her eyes, and it occurred to me that she had way more in common with Sam than I realized. In addition to being a little drama-queen, Kyrie didn’t know how to swim either!

“Unbelievable,” I murmured under my breath. With a determined expression, I caught Sergeant Kami’s eye and declared, “Okay ladies, I’m on a mission. I don’t plan on going to bed tonight until I’ve taught these two how to swim. Who wants to help me give the little ones swimming lessons?”

To my delight, everyone raised their hands in the air.

Suddenly fired up due to everyone else’s enthusiasm, I smiled widely and pumped my fist in the air as I yelled, “Alright! Let’s do this!”

One hour later we had made tremendous progress with the girls, and we could officially declare them competent swimmers. Sergeant Kami wasn’t satisfied until Kyrie and Marisol were able to stay afloat in the deep end of the pool without any flotation devices.

When we were all satisfied that we had succeeded in what we had set out to do, Harper called a snack break. We all followed suit and climbed out of the pool one by one, heading over to the buffet table where all the food was. Mercer needed a little bit of help getting out of the pool, but as soon as he was out of the water, he took the opportunity to spray us all with water droplets as he vigorously shook himself dry. Laughing, I made a detour and grabbed a towel to dry myself off a little, and noticed that Jamie had followed me.

While I stood there toweling off, my eyes drifted down Jamie’s purple two-piece and lingered on her gills on either side of her waist. She was busy drying off with her own towel but she had noticed where my attention had gone.

By way of explanation I said, “I really can’t wait until I get my next injection. I think it’s going to be amazing being able to breathe underwater.” As I stood there thinking about the gills, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t taken the time to investigate where Sergeant Kami’s gills were located. Looking up, I saw that she was currently indulging in a cupcake by the buffet table, so I decided to go investigate.

I realized right away that I didn’t really need to look very hard. As I came up behind her, I saw the dainty slits on either side of her lower back. Without asking, I gently ran one fingertip along a gill line and watched them quiver as Sergeant Kami turned her head to smile at me over her shoulder. I returned her smile as my look undoubtedly turned envious. I was practically chomping at the bit for my next upgrade.

Holding up my hand in a gesture to “wait”, I said, “Let’s all go fill our plates with food so that we can sit down and talk about our upcoming test this Friday!” Without waiting for a response, I darted off and grabbed a paper plate, loading up on a bunch of snacks to appease the sudden hunger pangs that were stabbing at my tummy. Swimming always made me ravenous. As I was making my way back to the beach chairs, a chocolate cupcake on the sugar-laden side of the buffet caught my eye. I stood there, chewing on my bottom lip as I thought about that decadent cupcake and whether or not it would cause me a stomach ache later.

Finally, I shrugged my shoulders and muttered, “Ahhh… to heck with it. I deserve this.” I turned around when a giggle sounded from behind me. Kyrie had snuck up on me while I was occupied and had heard me mumbling to myself.

“With as healthy as you are, you shouldn’t obsess about one measly little cupcake. Look at me! I’ve got two!” My gaze transferred from her angelic grin to her sugar-filled paper plate. In addition to her two cupcakes, she also had an assortment of cookies and candies. I just shook my head at her in amusement, knowing it would be pointless to steer her towards the opposite end of the table.

We all sat down in a circle and started eating. Allegra was sitting across from me and I chewed as I stared at her, thinking (not for the first time) that she looked suspiciously familiar to me but I couldn’t pinpoint where. I noticed it the first time I saw her, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out where I may have seen her before.

Allegra had noticed my attention and nervously started nibbling on a pretzel. “I’m sorry I’m staring! I don’t mean to be rude… it’s just that I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before. I mean,
before
I ended up here.” Trying to shrug it off, I added, “I guess you just have one of those faces. Maybe you remind me of someone I used to work with or something.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Harper and Kyrie were exchanging looks, and both Jamie and Sergeant Kami were staring down at their laps. I figured there must be a hidden story in there somewhere and that time would only tell when Allegra would feel comfortable enough with me to share what was on her mind.

To my surprise I didn’t have to wait long at all. Clearing her throat, she nervously set her plate down and looked me straight in the eye as she began. “Does the name Ally Ames mean anything to you?”

My response was instantaneous as a loud gasp inevitably burst forth from my lips. “Oh my God!! You’re Ally Ames?! I saw you on that one show …about post-apocalyptic America after the alien invasion. What was it called? Interloper!! I loved that show but I stopped watching it after the fourth episode because of a change in my work schedule.”

Allegra’s eyes looked a little sad as she stared back at me with a shy smile on her face. For the life of me, I couldn’t stop gushing over her since this was the closest I had ever come to meeting a celebrity. “I also remember you from the car insurance commercial, and that one cereal commercial. Geez…the jingle for Fruity Loopty Loo’s was always stuck in my head when it first came out because the tune was so catchy.” Staring intently at her, I realized that she had cut a dramatic length off of her hair, because on television her hair had been as long as mine. But even so, I should’ve made the connection right away.