“I asked you a question, lowlife,” Dunbar said. “You think I’m not doing my job right? You want to file a complaint with the authorities?”

I tried to think of something to say. But all I could think of was the way things used to be, the life I used to have. I flashed back on how things were when I was at home. I thought of the way my parents and pastors and teachers and my karate instructor Sensei Mike would always tell me to tell the truth no matter what. It seemed like only yesterday I was back in that world, and yet it seemed like a million years ago. Back there, back home, there weren’t any guys like Chuck Dunbar-or if there were, I didn’t know them and they didn’t have complete and total control over my life. Back home, it was easy to say, “Tell the truth no matter what,” when “no matter what” didn’t include a guy who would gladly break every bone in your body and never pay a price.

Still, I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Dunbar smiled again, a weird, dreamy smile full of cruelty and a sick pleasure in cruelty. “Charlie West,” he said. My name sounded pretty bad when he spoke it, like the name of some kind of slimy creature you wouldn’t want to find crawling on you. “You think you’re pretty special, don’t you, Charlie West? I watch you. I know you. You think you’re something better than the rest of us.”

“I don’t…”

He hit me again, not hard, just enough to make me shut up-and shut up is exactly what I did.

“You’re nothing,” Dunbar said, his pale eyes gleaming. “You’re not even nothing. You’re a piece of garbage blowing across the yard. I’m going to teach you that, West. I’m going to make it my special mission to teach you. I’m going to make it my hobby, my pastime. From now on, the slightest thing you do, the first wrong move, the first wrong word that comes out of your mouth, I’m taking you into the Outbuilding.”

I stood up straight when I heard that, my heart clutching with fear.