I'm sure you've figured out what happened next.
As a reward for helping save the city (and under the condition that I did occasional moonlit work with her), Diane granted me a vacant building and the materials I would need to open my own boutique. People all across town wanted to buy my dresses, and I was finally living my lifelong dream.
Three months later, I finally decided there was one more issue I had to resolve. I went to the chief of police and asked her what happened to the Rat Pack. Marmalade was right about one thing: they did surrender the stolen money, but only if the police promised I stayed out of it. They only spent two years in prison, but still had to perform five thousand hours of community service.
With help from Diane, I found my old friends working at the restaurant I used to work at. I waited until their shift was over. Then, I finally confronted them.
"Brenda? Monique? Sapphire?" I asked. The three rats looked up and saw me.
"Well, I'll be," Brenda said with a smile. "Little Gabi Angelfish-Santiago."
"Gabi, is that you?" Monique gasped.
"Yep, it's me," I replied. "Look, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for what-"
"No," Brenda interrupted. "If anyone should be sorry, it's us. We accused you of being ungrateful. Turns out doing bad things with good intentions is... still doing bad things. We're sorry we ruined your life."
"You didn't ruin my life," I reassured them with tears in my eyes. My old friends pulled me in for a group hug. "You were my family."
"So, uh... Where have you been this whole time?" Sapphire asked.
"I was trapped and alone for a while," I explained, "but a wolf, a snake, a tarantula, a shark, and a piranha... they set me free. Now, I'm running my own business and making dresses for everyone."
"Not bad, Gabi," Brenda said, rubbing my head. "Not bad at all."
I remembered, of course, to visit Piranha regularly. Every single one of our dates was held in there. We only had thirty minutes each day, but we managed to make the most of it. I always brought lunch, talked about how things were, he serenaded me, said how proud he was of me. We were separated by a glass barrier, but just talking to him was all the contact I really needed.
That July, I was working on another dress when I got a text from Diane.
"Think you can take tomorrow off?"
I texted back, "Sure. What's up?"
"Big case. Gotta pick up some help."
At first, I wasn't sure what she meant by help, but the moment I saw those five friendly faces outside of the penitentiary, I realized what was going on. Due to good behavior, the not-so-Bad Guys had their sentence reduced.
"Hey, guys!" Diane greeted after pulling up in front of them. "Ready to get to work?"
Well, that's the story of Gabriela Angelfish-Santiago! Will we ever see more of her? I don't know.
Thank you to all who took the time to read this story and to all, a good night. ★