Jackie was sitting down at her desk, depressingly old scratched up pink cell phone in one hand. She'd wanted it terribly when she was ten. Now she wished she had a normal colored cell phone, instead of a bright pink one that was faded in some places where her fingers had worn through the coloring a bit. Duncan wasn't answering his. She knew he had it on, she knew it was with him, but he obviously didn't want to talk to her. Tears filled her eyes, and she tried to blink them away but it was useless. The slipped down her cheek, the rebellious little drops, and fell with an unsatisfying plip as they landed on the desk. She flipped through the magazine, wondering if there was any way that she could find out what exactly he'd used the letters to say. But- no, Duncan wouldn't be as dumb as to use the letters in the order he needed them, would he? She put down her cell phone, defeated. If Duncan was in a difficult situation right now, she didn't want to make it any worse.

She flipped through her abused magazine, taking into account all of the letters and words that were missing. She was right, though, her brother wasn't dumb. The words and letters weren't taken out in order- they were taken out from completely random places. Jackie was definitely no specialist, so she knew that no matter how many hours she could waste trying to piece together things the letter might have said, she'd get nowhere.

There was a knock on her door, and she through the magazine into her desk drawer, and went into study-mode.

"Jackie, Tess is here," her mother's small voice barely permeated the door.

Jackie gave a sigh of relief, threw her chair back, grabbed her bag, and inspected herself to make sure she looked at least presentable. She and Tess had made plans to go for lunch at the local ice cream place. "Coming!" She cried.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Still no word from her father," Aiden said, tiredly. "Have you checked to see what's holding him up?" Aiden idly tapped a pencil against his broken desk. "I'm getting impatient."

"I know..." Duncan murmured, unsure if he was sick of Aiden or sick of himself. "I'll see what's going on."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Duncan felt his entire body go numb, as if someone had suddenly frozen him solid in a short instant. What he was seeing was simply unreal.

Once, when Duncan was little, he'd ran away from home. His father had taken away his gameboy, so Duncan had screamed at him and told him that he hated him. In the following hour, he'd packed up his Power Rangers backpack with toys and cookies, and headed where only a five year old boy would run away to. The toy store down the street. That was when his father had still loved him, though, when his father cared about his son's existence. Duncan had sat down in the action figure section, looking at all of the toys he couldn't touch until everyone had left the store. He took out one of his own toys that he'd brought with him, and munched on some Oreos until his stomach ached.

"Hey kid," a tired looking teenager with piercings and acne said tiredly as he swept the floor before closing. "You need to leave now. Where your parents at?"

"I ran away," Duncan said, proudly glaring at the older kid. "I'm staying here," he declared.

The teenager, who's name tag identified him as Gage, rubbed the back of his head and looked around awkwardly. He sighed and mumbled, "Oh geez..." as he contemplated what to make of the stubborn little kid who'd made himself at home. Obviously Gage couldn't leave the kid there. But at the same time, Gage had seen so much of himself in Duncan that he didn't want to kick him out, either. He set the broom up against the wall and sat down next to the young boy, who was covered in dark-colored crumbs. Gage looked at the boy honestly. "So, why'd you run away?"

Duncan explained the story as well as an absent-minded five year old could. Most of it involved the antagonizing of his father as a "bad guy who needed to go to jail for stealing his stuff."

"Oh...I see," Gage pretended to be thoughtful, "Yeah, parents can stink sometimes, huh?"

"Suck. They suck. Stop talking to me like I don't know bad words," Duncan said, pouting.

Gage had frowned, not entirely positive of what to make of that. "Well, your Dad loves you, okay? If I let you borrow my gameboy, will you promise to go home and bring it back to me when you get yours back?"

Duncan's eyes widened, and he broke into a smile. In reality, he missed his warm bed and his mother's big meals and after-dinner desserts. "Really?" He asked.

"Yeah, sure," Gage reluctantly handed the boy his gameboy. Few boys his age still had gameboys, but he couldn't really call himself a social butterfly, and he was a bit of a game nerd. "Just give it back to me when you get yours back, alright?"

"Yeah, I will..." Duncan was only half listening as Gage called his father. He was far too busy infatuated with his new toy.

When his father arrived, he hugged Duncan tightly and told him never to scare him like that again. He'd even taken Duncan out for a brownie sundae with nuts and caramel before finally taking him home. After they'd gotten home, Duncan had been punished by being confined to his room except for meals and bathroom breaks. But Duncan hadn't cared. He had a gameboy, after all.

Gage had never gotten his gameboy back.

The point of the story was that Duncan's father had loved him into Duncan had wrecked his trust and given a legitimate cause to his father's hatred. Duncan's father wasn't a bad father. Courtney's father, on the other hand, was. Courtney had been nothing but a perfect daughter, yet her father was sitting in the kitchen, casually drinking coffee, using the ransom note as a coaster.