Page 77 of Escaping Wildfire
I looked at myself in the mirror and my mother pinned the veil on my head. I felt like a little girl playing dress up in her mother’s dress…beautiful but not at all myself.
Rory and Hadley had also come up to my suite while I got ready. They looked beautiful in their matching dresses. Hadley’s short brown hair had been left down in ‘50s style curls, while Rory’s blonde hair was in an elaborate updo.
A knock at the door startled me, and Rory went to answer it. She stepped aside as a man in a dark suit entered the room.
“Papi.” I looked over at my father, who stared at me with tears in his eyes.
“Mi niña…you look beautiful.” I stayed rooted to my spot, not knowing how to handle the situation. I was mad at him, or at least I wanted to be mad at him…but seeing him for the first time since my birthday was hard. Despite his expensive new suit, he looked gaunt and tired. I walked over to him and let him hug me.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered to me as he held me. “I’m sorry for everything, but I am glad you’ll be safe soon. Don’t worry about me and your mother, we’ll be fine.” He pulled back, and my mother came over to us as it was now time to head downstairs.
One of the omegas handed me a large bouquet of red roses, and we waited for our cue as the music started. Hadley walked down the aisle first followed by Rory. My parents both escorted me down the aisle next, and I was handed off to Larkin when we reached the front. He smiled and winked at me. His wink was the signal he decided to give as a way of letting me know James had let the cougars through. My heart started pounding like crazy as Larkin led me to our spots at the front. The song ended, and the elder leading the event asked everyone to sit back down for the ceremony. I swear my heart was about to beat out of my chest. The elder asked me and Larkin to face each other and hold hands, so I handed off the bouquet to Rory, and just as I turned back to place my hands in Larkin’s, a loud growl sounded out from the left. I looked around for the source of the noise, but we didn’t see anything until the two cougars were nearly upon us.
Rory loudly screamed, “Cougars!” Before looking at her parents.
One of the cougars pounced in my direction, but just barely missed me, landing instead on my voluminous skirt. Larkin looked at the crowd and yelled out, “Get to the pack house, everyone!”
Hadley came up beside me and yanked me towards the forest line. “Come on.” Chaos ensued as the cougars attempted to rile up the crowd. I tripped over my dress, and Hadley helped me up, but not before her sister Scarlett showed up. “We have to get inside, come on, Hadley.”
“No, we’re going this way.” After much deliberation, Hadley had agreed to come with me, so having her sister here was going to make things difficult. I hoped she didn’t bail at the last minute.
“Hadley, come on, we need to keep everyone safe.”
“Scarlett, I know that, but Gema and I have to go this way.” She stopped and it looked like she was mind linking her sister. The two were silent for a while before Hadley turned to me, “I’ll take you to the border, then I’ll come back with Scarlett.
“But Hadley…”
“No…please…let’s just go.” She said with one last look to her sister.
“Wait, Hadley…” Scarlett reached out to her. “You have to go…I’ll miss you, but please go.” Her voice cracked at the end.
Hadley stood with her mouth agape, not believing her sister’s words.
“Go, Hadley,” Scarlett whispered to her sister before she took off in the direction of the pack house, leaving us to keep heading our way.
We made it to the forest and kept going. “Hurry, they said to turn left at the pack border.” It felt like we had been running a while, and I was certain the dress was ruined by the forest floor, but we kept up our pace. The darkness didn’t help, but at least we had our night vision and some light from the full moon.
“The border is close.” Hadley led the way as she knew where to go. As we approached the border, we saw something black and shadowy moving up ahead. We were too late to stop running as we realized it was a bear cub. It let out a scared cry, alerting its mother to our presence, and before we knew it, an angry mama bear was heading our way.
“Run,” Hadley yelled out as she shifted. I didn’t wait for her as I took off past the border and just ran. I could hear Hadley’s growls as the bear huffed at her. I turned back to look and saw Hadley now snarling at the bear, who quickly gathered her cubs and turned to leave. I continued to run knowing Hadley would catch up by following my scent. Before long, Hadley had caught up to me. She had lost her clothes in the shift, so I grabbed the bottom of my dress and gladly ripped off a giant chunk, I hated this dress anyway. It was already torn in some places, so it came off easily. As she shifted, I handed her the piece of dress, and she wrapped it around her like a tube dress. She then looked around at our surroundings, trying to make sense of where we were. Hadley suddenly turned to me with a worried expression.
“Gema, I think we’re lost.”
34 Lost
GEMA
“Gema, I think we’re lost.” Hadley looked at the trees surrounding us. “They said to go left, but we kept going straight and then we went right. I’ve never been this far off territory.” She rubbed her forehead.
“It’s okay, maybe we can retrace our steps?”
“Yeah, let’s try. What if we follow our scent?”
“Do you think we’ll run into those bears again?”
“I don’t think so, but we’ll just be extra careful.”
“Alright, let’s go this way then.” I pointed back in the direction we came from. The two of us walked on silently. I lost my shoes as I ran away from the bears, but I didn’t care much anyway as the heels would have been uncomfortable. Even with me tearing off some of my dress to give to Hadley, there was still too much fabric, so I tore off more of the skirt to help me walk better. Luckily, the night was clear and warm.