Faster, faster, come on Hayley, I think as I paddle viciously down the raging river.

My paddles cut through the water at top speed, sending my kayak shooting down the rapids. The edge of the kayak clips a craggy rock poking out from the river’s surface and spends me spinning.

Round and round, I can’t tell right from left. I hit another rock and it stops my spinning so I’m finally facing straight… backwards.

And who else to be not even five feet behind me in his own kayak but Dmitriy Ivanov, the big dumb brute.

His gray eyes lock on my green ones and he paddles harder, using years of built up muscles to power through the currents. I frantically spin myself forwards again, conviently catching a current that fires me out of a cannon and down river.

I zip through the whitewater, barely even in control of the kayak anymore. I narrowly dodge jutting rocks and flying broken tree branches, jamming my paddles into the river to make sure I don’t beach myself.

Something jolts the back of my kayak and I whip my head around. It’s just a sturdy tree branch…but who’s holding the other end of that tree branch? Dmitriy himself.

Man, I’m really getting tired of this guy.

Using my paddle to push off a conviently placed rock, I row out of range of Dmitriy’s newly acquired branch.

When I glance back and see Dmitriy a comfortable (comfortable being a stretch) distance away, I slam my paddle into a rock and firmly angle my kayak towards the rocky shore. Then, being the idiot that I am, I stand in the kayak, riding it like a paddle board.

The minute I feel the bottom of the kayak scrape the shore, I abandon ship, leaping from the now-beached kayak and sprinting onto the shore.

I hurtle debris and dodge boulders, trying not to slip on the little pebbles decorating the shore. I hear Dmitriy’s pounding footsteps and heavy breathing behind me. Cutting right, I run into the dense trees, hoping to lose him. As I run, I sigh.

This is what happened when you run from the Mafia.