Tortured by the T-Girl Tutor

"Have you made it past this part?" Miranda finally broke the silence. "I keep getting killed."

Duncan watched what she was doing on the screen. Miranda had her tongue sticking out of the right side of her mouth as she tried to evade enemies. Her fingers mashed buttons frantically. "I think you have to hide for a while or they'll kill you before you can finish," Duncan finally told her.

Another couple minutes passed before Miranda pondered out loud, "How come nobody in the seventeen hundreds even blinks an eye when a guy comes crashing down from a building into a cart full of hay?"

"Because you wouldn't have a game otherwise," he answered.

"Touché." Miranda paused the game and told him, "Go get me a snack."

Duncan used the game being paused as his opportunity to ask, "Aren't we going to do any work? That is what you're here for... so shouldn't we--"

"I said get me a snack," she cut in with a sharp edge in her voice.

"I'm not your maid or your cook or something!" Duncan bristled. "Go down and get your own damn food if you're just gonna play Assassin's Creed all day," he unloaded.

Miranda's reaction wasn't what he expected. She smiled at him, baring her pearly white teeth. "Showing some spine, huh? I'm surprised. It looks like I'm dealing with more than I expected here." Her tone was smooth and complimentary. Duncan showed a hint of a smile himself and that's when Miranda's demeanor suddenly changed. Her tone was harsh again as she grabbed his arm and told him, "If you don't get your little ass downstairs and fix me something to eat right now I'll call your mom up here and tell her you've been refusing to work. You wouldn't listen to me, and then you got on that game system of yours!"

Duncan nearly swallowed his tongue. He realized he'd walked right into that. His mom was going to believe Miranda and not him. Duncan begrudgingly asked her what she wanted from the fridge and she replied, "Now that's better," then told him. His mom was in the living room hard at work as he pulled a dish from the cupboard downstairs.