"Are you enjoying your cupcakes?" Asked a voice from behind Duncan making him spin around.
Standing in front of the only exit out of the kitchen was a teenage girl. She was the most beautiful thing Duncan had ever seen. The girl had long mocha colored hair and creamy brown skin. Her eyes were as black as onyx.
"Wow." Duncan muttered aloud, not quite recovered yet from the shock of no longer thinking he was all alone in a strangers house.
The girl cocked her head to the left. Duncan stared for another second before realizing what he was doing. He dropped the apple he'd been holding and scrambled for the door.
"You cannot leave." The girl said firmly, standing her ground in front of the only way out. "You have not finished your sweets." She said sweetly, smiling.
Duncan, who had come to a dead stop when the girl had stayed still, tried to formulate a plan of escape. First, he decided, he would finish his "sweets".
Courtney watched as the young man slowly backed up. Resuming his place on the other side of her kitchen table. She smiled when he took a seat and reached for another cupcake. His eyes never leaving her slight form.
"Would you like some strawberry short cake?" Courtney asked, smiling again at the young man. Right then the oven dinged, making the young man jump three inched out of his chair.
Courtney laughed out loud as she watched the man's face.
The young man nodded slowly and Courtney put on and oven mitt and pulled out the circular cakes. He watched her place strawberries and whipped cream on top of the cakes forming large mounds of sweetness. But his eyes grew wary as Courtney neared him to set the plat with two ginormous strawberry short cakes down on his left.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Duncan asked Courtney cautiously.
"No. I never eat what I bake." Courtney replied coyly. Giving him a slight, if not sad, smile.
Duncan watched as the slim figure darted around the kitchen, preparing him another sweet dessert. It felt really good to be papered and served.
Duncan had grown wary when he notice the girl wasn't eating anything at all, but dismissed the idea of poison since the cakes must have been baking long before he arrived.
"So," Duncan began after he devoured his first of four mounds of strawberry goodness. "How long until the cops show up?" He said, placing another bite of cake into his mouth.
The girl cocked her head to the left again, frowning. "I'm not sure I know what you mean." She replied slowly.
"Humf." Duncan grunted. "If that's the way she wants to play it, fine by me. I'll just eat until someone comes to take me away."
"I'm Courtney." She girl said, taking a seat across the table from him and placed her chin in her hands. "And you are?" She asked when Duncan didn't answer right away.
"Dean." Duncan grunted, thinking on the spot; he cursed himself for not being more original.
"Really?" Courtney asked, raising an eyebrow to smile slightly. "I think you look more like a Duncan." She said quietly.
Duncan's eyes widened considerably and he froze.
"Lets start over. I'm Courtney. You are?" The girl interjected harmlessly.
"Duncan Markus." Duncan replied, not bothering to come up with a phony last name since she obviously already knew who he was.
"De La Cruz." Courtney added, smiling brilliantly.
Outside 'Killer' and the other gang members waited the designated half an hour before giving Duncan up for lost.
"Come on guys, he's a goner." One of the boys said.
One by one each boy slipped into the black of night. Unseen to most who were looking.