1 Prologue

He didn't think when he woke up this morning, he'd be running a marathon he had no prior practice for. Fine, he thought. I'll call a spade a spade. It wasn't exactly a marathon as much as it was him running from a bunch of bad people because he owed them something. People who could very well have killed in the past. So, as he evaluated this in his mind while he was attempting to evade their deathly grasps, he realized he was actually running from not just two very pissed off mafia men but from two very pissed off mafia men who might have tortured, raped and murdered people. Why not grant them the whole works right? Yeah, it would definitely be bad if he fell behind for even a second.

But the worst thing was, (you're probably thinking how bad could this possibly get, right?) he had dragged the one person he didn't want involved in this operation at all right into the middle of it, such that she too was right behind him, getting her ass chased as well. And he did not want her to be tortured, raped or killed. Nope, no siree.

So the plan for now was to remain as mobile as possible and to be lightning quick on their feet. Which was hard for him because all the nights that he had spent on his bean bag chair, snacking on chips and popcorn and beef jerky and God knows what else, washing it down with cans of coke or bottles of Budweiser (he really didn't have a preference which one it was to do the job) had finally caught up with him. So this was where all the trans-fat and excess sugar (and what bad chemicals did alcohol contain again?) went to; it somehow ended up in his air passage, constricting his breathing and it latched onto his blood vessels such that depleted amounts of oxygen were being sent to him in this dire time of need. But damn, what he wouldn't give to have some chips or popcorn or beef jerky with coke but no Budweiser because it was still morning and who drinks in the morning?

He found himself wheezing and not being able to keep his speed and stamina up. He didn't really know about her eating habits because he didn't know her well at all but he could tell that if anybody's breathing and panting was louder than his, it was hers.

He needed to find a place for them both to stop at safely without getting shot at or have their fingers pulled off. So, when both of them had hit Rockefeller Centre's vicinity with their pursuers still hot on their trail, he devised a plan; a plan so brilliant, he ought to have won a Nobel Prize just for having thought of it.

She needed no further explanation about the plan. As soon as she saw what he meant to do, he could tell she was giving it her all and last ounce of energy to cross the finish line.

It wasn't exactly a marathon as much as it was a race. A race to see who reached that beautiful building first, a building that had very recently, come to mean a lot to him for one very peculiar reason.

It was a race to find out if both of them would survive or if eventually, one of them would simply give in and fall behind, overrun by the pack of wolves that were just itching to tear at them and snapping their jaws to get a taste of them. The race was on.