By the time Wolf came back up to the hideout, Shark was the only one up; or so Wolf thought. At that moment, Tarantula came crawling on the wall, and towards the kitchen area, where Piranha was trying his very best to fix dinner, but it was to no avail. Every few minutes, Piranha would put his head in one fin, shut his eyes, and breath heavily. After a few times of the fish taking short breaks to catch his breath, Snake came into the kitchen, and looked towards his direction.

"Hey, when is dinner ready?" He asked Piranha, rather grumpily.

The young red-bellied piranha looked over at him as he was taking a deep breath at that moment. Staring at Snake, Piranha only gave him a painful grimace.

"Ask me that the day you get nicked by a bullet," he said, feeling hurt.

Just then, Wolf walked in the kitchen, opened up the refrigerator, and grabbed himself a bottle of wine, poured himself a glass of it into a wine glass, and slowly sipped on it.

"Snake, be nice." Wolf told him. "After the long day we had, give Piranha grace. He's hurting, and worn out."

Wolf then offered Piranha some of his wine, saying that it would help with his pain. Piranha then took a tiny sip of it. Then as he got back to work, Wolf stopped him.

"Piranha, just stop what you doing right now, I'm ordering Chinese takeout."

Piranha protested at first, but it was only after he turned himself around, and slid down the wall did he finally agree to Wolf's suggestion on Chinese takeout. Wolf then helped him up off the floor, and to the couch. Once the small fish made it, Piranha leaned his head against the cushion of the couch.

"You okay there?" Wolf asked him.

Piranha only nodded his head after he leaned the back of his head against the back couch cushion. As he did, Tarantula crawled her way up to the brim of the couch next to where Piranha was resting himself.

"How's the wound feeling now that you have a bandage around yourself?"

Piranha looked up behind him to see his friend, and fellow teammate sitting right above him. He shrugged his shoulders.

"No better, no worse. Thanks for asking though," he told Tarantula.

"It'll get better over time," Wolf said. "Just give it time, and you gotta have patience with it."

At that point, Piranha looked like he was about to drift off back to sleep. And the dead giveaway being how he curled himself up on the couch. Wolf and Tarantula both took one look at him, then glanced at each other, and were reminded of today's earlier events. They all had came really close to losing one of their own. Piranha wore a blank look on his face as his eyes were closed, back up against the cushion. Wolf guessed that Piranha did that to help alleviate some of the pain from his graze. After a few moments, it was Wolf who broke the silence.

"And he's out like a light," he whispered softly to Tarantula.

"So… what did you and Diane talk about when she came by earlier?" Tarantula asked.

"How things went with the bust, and all that," Wolf replied.

Then he lifted his left paw and showed her his engagement ring.

"You cannot tell anyone else, not even Snake," he whispered to Tarantula.

"So you finally did it? You proposed?" Tarantula asked him.

Wolf only nodded his head. "We haven't set a date yet for the wedding, but I have a feeling that it's going to be somewhere around next June."

"You plan on going public with this?" Tarantula said.

"I don't know. I'm kinda lost in-between waves about that," Wolf answered.

Tarantula looked up at him. Wolf then continued on.

"The reason being because… because people might wonder why the Governor decided to marry a reformed criminal. And I would hate to smear her like that. Plus, the public would begin to think that something was off with her. They might even suspect her, if we went public about our engagement."

Tarantula then told him that she understood what he meant. He only nodded his head as he was about to get out of his seat.

"Would it be better if you and Diane got married through the Justice of the Peace?" Tarantula asked him.

"Well, actually, there's a thought." Wolf said.

"So that way," Tarantula began. "The only people who would know about it would be you and her. Plus, us four."

"Good point," Wolf whispered.

Suddenly, Wolf's phone dinged. He took one look at it, and saw that their Chinese takeout had came. As he went into the elevator, Shark helped Snake set the dining table while they waited on Wolf. By the time he came back, they had the table ready to dine on. Piranha, at that moment, came walking towards the dining area, rubbing his eyes in the process. He about fell off his seat when he went to sit down in it; and he would have had it not had been for Shark catching him right on time. During the course of their evening meal, Piranha had almost fallen asleep, one time, almost falling face first into his food. All the chatter was about what went down earlier that day. It wasn't until Snake noticed that Wolf was wearing something around his left hand ring finger that they stopped talking.

"So what's the ring for?" Snake asked Wolf.

Meanwhile...

Walker had just arrived on the scene just in time to see what was going on. He was surprised to see so many police personnel at the home of Jonson Bess. A few GSPD patrol officers flooded the house as Walker went in. He tried seeing if he spot anyone from his unit; and sure enough, he did. A tan colored Canaan dog donning a gray colored short sleeved shirt, and denim jeans, happened to see him. She then walked his direction as she saw him talking with one of the Superintendents. And speaking of which; when the Superintendent saw her coming their way, he quickly motioned for her to join him, and Walker. Once the coyote seen his fellow teammate approaching him, he excused himself from the Superintendent, and walked her way.

"Give me an update, Daley. What the heck happened?" Walker said as he approached her.

The Canaan dog only shook her head. "It's not good. You know who Jonson Bess is?"

"Yeah, I know who he is," he replied.

"The attorney who saw to it that the Bad Guys' prison sentence got reduced to twenty years, instead of life."

"Well yeah, get this? He's dead," The Canaan dog—Jordyn Daley—told Walker.

"What? How?" He whispered.

"Yeah, he's dead," she replied. "Dispatch got the call from his butler. They're taking Bess down to the examiner, where she'll perform an autopsy. We won't have the answers until morning."

"Nice, another of those cases." Walker said in a low voice.

"But that's not the only thing you should be concerned about," Daley whispered.

"Then what is it?" Walker asked.

"As we went through his file cabinet," she began. "I happened to find out that five of them were missing. And I just might know whose files disappeared."

"Wait, you mean to tell me that whoever our killer is, took those files? Walker asked her.

"It's the only explanation I got so far Walker," Daley answered him.

She gave Walker a look of worry, and concern. "You look upset about something."

"You're right, I think I know whose files went missing," Walker said.

"Whose?" She asked.

Walker didn't exactly want to answer her question, but at the same time, he knew that it would be a matter of time before Daley would find out. He knew who he needed to see, and he thought it might be time for him to introduce Daley to someone he knew, all too well.

"Wait," Daley whispered. "You're thinking that it's them, aren't you? The Bad Guys?"

"No," Walker replied. "No. Not at all. They wouldn't pull something like this off. Nor would they murder someone who helped them with their trial."

"The Crimson Paw then?" Daley whispered softly to her teammate.

"What? No," Walker said, caught off guard for a moment.

Walker then smiled as he all too well remembered that Daley had been trying her best for the last two years to find out who the identity of the Crimson Paw even was. After a moment, he cleared his throat.

"Speaking of which, did you find anything more about the Crimson Paw?"

"I think I'm close enough," Daley admitted. "But I know it's not Rupert Marmalade either. Too small."

"You made that your sole mission, haven't you?" Walker asked.

As she was about to answer his question, Daley saw that the Superintendent was waving for her and Walker to join him again. And she saw the reason why.

"Hey, I think Superintendent Thompson's wanting us again. And the Chief's here also."

Walker only rolled his eyes as he followed suit after Daley.

11:45pm…

By the time they got done with a game of zilch, Wolf felt what he thought was one of the worst headaches coming on. After taking down a couple of ibuprofen with a glass of watered down wine, he called it a night. As everyone else was following suit, Snake came up to him as he sat down on the couch. Piranha kept whining that his throat hurt while Shark—dreesed in a pair of Christmas pyjamas—fixed him a cup of caffeine free green tea. Tarantula, at this point, was fast asleep listening to Switchfoot on her headset, unnerved by the constant chatter of her male cohorts. Piranha stating that his throat hurt had Snake then remember the one time shortly after they were set free from prison that all five of them had gotten sick with Covid. And that Diane, unwittingly, came to see how they were doing. Luckily, the governor never came down with it, but that didn't mean that she self quarantined herself as soon as went back to her place for the next two weeks. By the time the time Piranha's tea got done, the smaller of the two fish slowly sipped it from the comfort of his beanbag while listening to the sound of Shark snoring, and Snake and Wolf whispering in the nearly dark room.

"So you never told me about the ring," Snake said. "You stole it?"

"What? No. I bought this on my own," Wolf told him.

"From the looks of it, I take that you're engaged?" Snake asked.

Wolf figured that his friends would eventually know about his proposal to Diane. As if already, Tarantula already knew about it.

"Yeah, I'm engaged," Wolf replied.

"So, she said yes?" Snake whispered. He already knew who it was that his best friend was engaged to.

"You know, I overheard you and Webs' conversation about you marrying Diane, but I didn't know you would pull it off."

Wolf, at this point, blushed nervously. "Yeah, but it's no big deal."

"To me, it is Wolfie. And I'm happy for you and Diane," Snake told him.

"You really mean that Snake?" Wolf asked him, moved by what his friend said just now.

Snake only nodded his head in total approval. Immediately, Piranha sputtered as he spit out what tea he inhaled into his mouth. Both Wolf and Snake then jumped up as they heard him.

"You did what? And you're engaged to who, chico!?" He cackled, his voice hoarse.

Wolf smacked a paw to his forehead. "Piranha, just get some sleep before you lose your voice completely."

"OOHHH! MY BELOVED PUSH POPS!" Shark suddenly shouted, making all three guys—Wolf, Snake, and Piranha jump out of their seats again. After a few seconds, Wolf figured out that Shark was just dreaming.

"Um, what was that amigo?" Piranha asked, coughing as he tried to speak up a little more.

Wolf then walked over to where Shark was asleep at, to see if he really was sleeping. And sure enough, he was. As Wolf crept his way back to the couch, he saw in the dark that Snake had coiled himself around one of the beams of their hideout, trying to fall asleep himself. Piranha had crawled up the couch at that point, and snuggled himself into one of the blankets. Soon after some train of thought, Wolf slowly drifted off to sleep himself.

I really hope that this chapter's worth it. And the fact that Shark hollered something about Push Pops in his sleep, I hope that was comedic enough for this chapter.

Here in this chapter, I introduce you to the Canaan dog that Walker talked to Foxington about in Chapter 2, Jordyn Daley, another GSPD officer. Whereas she's a part of Walker's unit, she's still an officer. Being one of my OCs, I think I would want Marina Squerciati to be the one who would voice her. Anyhow with that said, I wish you all the best happy Thanksgiving ever! Don't forget to review this chapter if you liked it.

God bless,

JalcoFox.