Vigilante PAW

Chapter Twenty-Five: Familial Love

Marshall, Rocky, Everest, and Katie were all sitting in Liz's car once again, all of the doors closed and the windows up. Outside of the car was Liz, who was currently filling the car with gas so they could get back on the road.

After encountering Hood and agreeing to help the place he resided in, they quickly left the area in order to cut off Liz and Katie from making it to where they had been. They were fast approaching the canine settlement, and the three stopped them before they could even get a good look at the gate.

Rocky managed to persuade them into leaving by lying to the girls. He explained that they had managed to get a picture of Marshall and Hood in the same frame with a nonexistent camera. This deterred them from going any further, with the trio leading them in the opposite direction. Marshall didn't exactly feel the best about lying to them of all people, but he went along with it in order to save a painfully long explanation for later.

And Marshall had just finished dumping the explanation onto Katie.

Obviously, she was caught off guard by this, but the first thing she wanted to know was if he was sure about the decision he made.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Katie inquired, her eyebrows threading together, "You can still—"

Marshall was quick to shake his head, "I'm a pup of my word, Katie. I'm doing it."

"Don't you mean we?" Rocky lightly nudged his friend, "Seems like you like leaving us out of it."

Everest chuckled, "Yeah, we're all in this together!"

The Dalmatian smiled nervously, "Right, right, sorry..."

Katie turned completely around in the passenger seat to look at the former fire pup, "But I don't understand. Why tell me this now? Why didn't you say anything when we first got on the road?"

"I uh... It didn't come to mind at the moment!" Marshall lied, his eyes shooting around in various directions.

"Mhm..." Katie nodded, not believing him for a second, "...So what about Liz? You haven't told her yet."

"I'm getting to it!" The Dalmatian exclaimed.

Rocky only rolled his eyes, "Right..."

As Liz filled the gas for the car, she felt an all too familiar vibrating sensation in her pocket. She debated whether or not to ignore it, wondering if it was really as important as some of the previous calls. Sighing, she grabbed her phone and stared at the screen. Who was she kidding? Swiping on the phone, the redhead held the phone up to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Liz. How's it been over there?" A high-pitched feminine voice greeted her, "Are you all packed?"

The woman raised an eyebrow, "All packed?"

"Yeah. You said you'd start heading over here today, right?"

Liz's eyes suddenly bulged. Looking up into the sky, she noticed that the morning sun would be nearing noon in just a few hours. That had completely slipped her mind! She was supposed to be on the road and on her way to her days ago, but thanks to her coming up with some lies, she was able to weasel her way out of leaving a few days ago. But she made a fatal mistake. She had given her a definitive date of her departure from Adventure Bay. Upon checking her phone, it was the dawn of that day.

She silently slapped her forehead with her palm. Why did she give her a day? She wasn't ready to leave yet. She wasn't a vet, sure, but she still had responsibilities that she couldn't just opt out of. It was non-negotiable. She was already sticking her neck out by procrastinating, but she had assumed they would be done with all of the Hood stuff by the day she told her she'd be leaving. Well, according to the pups, they were. But she wanted to at least be there when Marshall was invited back onto the PAW Patrol, if that's what he wanted to do.