By KEITH UPCHURCH

kupchurch@heraldsun.com; 419-6612

DURHAM -- A juvenile is being held in the stabbing of a teen Wednesday night in a parking lot at Pinecrest Apartments at 608 Hardee St. in eastern Durham, police said Friday.

The victim, identified by friends as a 17-year-old Hillside High School student, was in critical but stable condition at Duke Hospital Friday, according to Cpl. Martin Walkowe of the Durham Police Department.

Walkowe said a 14-year-old boy had been taken into custody in the stabbing.

Friends of the victim said the boy had been arguing with the victim earlier in the day.

"Right before it happened, I was with him,'' said Alexis Rawles, who lives at nearby Naples Terrace apartments on Hardee Street. When she later called his cell phone, ''it kept going to voice mail. And so I was like, 'Dang,' and then this other boy came out and said he just got stabbed. And I was like, 'Dang.' ''

Rawles said she's known the victim about a year.

"He is a good person,'' she said. "He used to talk to my cousin, and that's how we came to be real close.''

"He likes to play basketball,'' she said. "He likes to joke around, be funny.''

She said the victim may have been picking on the juvenile, and that led to the stabbing.

Just before the stabbing, she said, "he was telling me to be safe and I was telling him to be safe, because we act like brothers and sisters.''

Another friend of the victim, Nicole Cates, who lives at Pinecrest Apartments near the victim and juvenile, said she visited the victim Thursday at the hospital and planned a return visit with other friends Friday.

"He wanted us to know that he was OK,'' she said. "They're going to keep him in there for awhile. We don't know when he's coming home.''

Cates said the victim ''is a good boy.''

"He goes to school every day,'' she said. "Every day he goes to play basketball in the basketball court for hours, and he comes home. And it's just sad. I was surprised that it even happened.''