Here is where the guido-fication comes in. (And I swear I'm not being racist, 'cause I am one too.)

"Heya, Sparky," someone said when I woke up.

It was Race. I looked around disoriented. We were in a dark, dusky room. Race looked fine, apart from a bruise on his jaw and what appeared to be a broken wrist, which he was cradling to his chest.

"What the hell, Race? What have you gotten yourself into?"

"Hey, I didn't ask you to come rescue me!"
"And if we didn't, you'd be dead."

It was just an assumption, I didn't actually think he'd be dead, but the way he got very silent made me change my mind.

A big guy came in, black hair slicked back with gel, a clean shaven face, and a rather large nose.

"Hey," Race started, "che ha dentro un mondo che ha dentro un mondo!"

The guy laughed. "Ah, si, si," he said in a sarcastic tone.

"I tried, man," Race muttered to me.

"What?"

The guy grabbed me by the back of my collar and punched me in the gut, completely knocking the wind out of me.

"Smetilla!" Race yelled.

"Ci sono armi nei supermercati e mettono i bepe nei vaffanculo," the guy answered nastily, shoving me back into a wall. He cracked his knuckles menacingly, and then pulled out about a two foot long whip.

A whip?

"Race," I said, "is he really going to –"

He cracked it. I ducked. It knocked my hat off.

"Race!"

"Un paio di ali al vento!" Race yelled.

This apparently had some affect. The guy turned around so fast the whip flailed out and struck my arm. I yelled in pain.

The guy said something. Race nodded. The guy left.

I slid to the floor, breathing hard and holding my arm. "What did you say?"

Race frowned. "I don't think it translates, exactly. Let's go."

I followed him out. "We're just … leaving?" He nodded. We 'picked up' Blink and Skittery from another room, neither of them the worse for wear. And then we just… left.

"Race, was that who I think it was?"

"If you think it was the Mafia, then yes?"

I swallowed hard. "Oh."

We were all silent for the rest of the way back.

It was about three in the morning, by Race's watch, when we got back to Manhattan. The three of them went to the lodge house, I turned to go home.

I snuck in by way of the fire escape and slipped into the living room window. I turned around to be face to face with Grace, which startled the hell out of me.

"Parker!" She threw her arms around me and God, that hurt. I gasped. She backed off. "Where have you been?"

I was at a loss for words. "I've only been gone a couple hours…"

"What are you talking about? You've been missing since the day before yesterday!"

"What?" Jesus, I was out cold a lot longer than I thought. "Well, what are you doing up so late?"

"Sleep walking, remember?" She flicked on the light, and then shrieked at the sight of me. She covered her mouth quickly. "What happened to you?"

I brushed past her and turned into the bathroom. I couldn't look that bad, could I? Oh, but apparently I could. I was covered in grime, I had a black eye and a gash on the side of my head, and what felt like a broken rib, not to mention the huge welt on my arm. I felt dizzy all of a sudden.

"Parker!" Grace pushed me down to sit on the edge of the sink. She pulled some kind of ointment cream from the cupboard and smeared it around my eye. She wiped the gash on my head clean and put a bandage on it. She accidentally brushed against my arm, which hurt a lot. I took in a sharp breath, which caused her to investigate, where she found the welt. "Were you whipped?"

I hesitated, then decided there was no point in lying. "Yes."

Grace shook her head, muttering under her breath. She made me take my shirt off while she wet a cloth and held it against the welt, which really stung at first but then started to numb it.

"Thanks," I said quietly.

She glanced at me. "What the hell were you doing?"

"Race may or may not have gotten in trouble with the Brooklyn Mafia."
She just stared at me. "You guys are idiots."

I couldn't help but smile.

Race cornered me later that day, his wrist in a splint. "We never speak of this again."
I nodded. Believe me, I was never going to say another word about it. "Race… what about Spot?"

Race's expression hardened. "I can't tell you that, Sparky."

The seriousness in his tone scared me. I nodded numbly/

"They're not gonna come after you, are they?" By 'you' I meant 'us'.

Race laughed. "Please. If they tried, the Manhattan Mafia would ripe them to shreds." He started to walk away.

"Wait – there's a Manhattan Mafia, too?"

Hehe, that was fun. Not that I enjoyed torturing Parker… or anything…

Also, don't bother trying to translate those sentences… I just wanted it to look like I knew what I was talking about, those are random lyrics to "Safari" by Jovanotti.