Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Dark clouds massed beyond the gates. Autumn had barely begun, and already the air carried a bitter chill.
At last, the gates of the Detention Center opened. A tall, slender man stepped out.
Julian Bennett was handsome in a gentle, almost delicate way. He wore only a thin shirt. His eyes were vacant and bewildered as they found the man leaning against a car a short distance away.
The boy who had once clung to Julian’s side, calling him “brother” at every opportunity, had grown into a leader of the business world.
Ethan Sterling possessed an imposing presence and sharply defined features. But when his eyes fell on Julian, all they held was contempt.
“Two years should have been enough to cure you, shouldn’t it?”
The person who had once treated Julian with such tenderness now seemed like a complete stranger.
The Detention Center was also called the Conversion Compound—a place that claimed to cure people of the kinds of love society refused to accept.
Julian still remembered how much Ethan had cared for him as they grew up together. Every act of concern, every moment of protection, remained vivid in his mind.
Why, then, had the moment Julian confessed his feelings brought him nothing but disgust and loathing?
Ethan glanced at the sky. The clouds were thickening, and rain was about to fall. He walked over and seized Julian by the wrist.
“It’s going to rain. Come home first.”
The sudden touch made Julian flinch.
Once, Ethan touching him like that would have made him happy for days.
Now it only filled him with terror and revulsion.
Julian’s face went deathly pale. He wrenched his wrist free and turned aside, retching helplessly.
The pain in his body and mind was so overwhelming that he wanted to die.
Ethan froze. He stared at his own hand in disbelief, unable to accept that a single touch from him could make Julian react with such disgust.
Julian had not eaten a full meal in far too long. His stomach had been ruined by hunger. Nothing came up except sour fluid.
Ethan stood there for a long moment. He had wanted to lose his temper, but when he saw Julian’s pallid face, the words died on his lips. Irritation churned inside him instead.
“You’re throwing up again, Julian?” he said coldly. “I haven’t even felt disgusted by the fact that you love me.”
He paused, his expression hardening.
“Whenever I think about how long we lived together, I just feel…”
“Disgusted.”
The words drove into Julian’s heart like splinters, tearing it apart until nothing remained but blood and ruin.
He was four years older than Ethan. When Julian had been nine, he had found the younger boy abandoned by the roadside. After that, they had clung to each other and survived together by whatever means they could.
Chapter 2
Even now, Julian could hardly believe that the younger brother who had once been so gentle, who had protected him and stood between him and every danger, could say something so cruel.
Julian gave a bitter laugh.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m disgusting.”
Once, hearing Ethan call his love disgusting would have broken his heart. But Julian had never believed that his feelings were shameful.
Now, he truly was disgusting—or so it felt. In that place, he had been abused until anyone could hurt him. He had been reduced to something rotten long ago.
Ethan shot him a cold look. He had postponed a meeting to come get Julian and had never expected the reunion to turn out this way. Irritation tightened his face.
With a click of his tongue, he got into the car and started the engine.
The black Maybach rolled past Julian. Ethan stopped beside him, lowered the window, and tossed a stack of red bills out onto the pavement.
“Take a cab home. I feel dirty just having you in my car.”
The money struck Julian across the face. The sharp edges of the bills stung enough to cut his skin.
The wind caught the notes and scattered them across the ground, where they landed in the mud.
Then Ethan drove away.
Julian remained where he was, silent, staring at the place where the car had disappeared. His gaze was as lifeless as a grave.
After two years of torture, two years of watching his mind and body collapse, he had long since forgotten the way home.
The wind came in cold gusts, but Julian could no longer feel it. He had no intention of picking up the money. Instead, he began walking in the direction Ethan’s car had taken.
The rain grew heavier, beating against his body. But no amount of rain could wash away the filth clinging to him. It would never be clean again.
By the time darkness swallowed the sky, Julian could see no light anywhere. He could not even feel the cold in his body.
He stood in the darkness and tilted his face up, letting the downpour scour him. When he lifted a hand to wipe his eyes, tears mingled with rain until he could no longer tell them apart.
Two years earlier, it had also been raining when Ethan sent him to the Detention Center.
That day, Julian had fallen to his knees and begged Ethan not to send him away.
Ethan had been a junior at Ashford University then. He had already begun working on his own business and had gained a modest reputation. He had spent a great deal of money to send Julian to the highest-rated detention facility he could find online, then cast him aside as though he were garbage.
Chapter 3
“When you’ve been properly rehabilitated, I’ll come back for you.”
Now Julian’s consciousness was fading. He could no longer keep himself upright. As he collapsed, a wash of bright light appeared through the haze.
A car had stopped in front of him. Someone jumped out in a panic, not even taking the time to open an umbrella.
Ethan saw Julian lying in the rain, filthy from head to toe, his face as pale as death. His eyes were empty and hopeless, without the slightest spark of life.
“All I did was tell you to walk home! What the hell are you pretending for?”
A roar filled Julian’s ears. He could not hear the words around him.
All he could see were the car’s headlights.
They were the first light he had seen in years—the kind of light that had never reached him in the basement.
When Julian lost consciousness completely, Ethan finally panicked. He hurriedly lifted him into his arms and rushed him to the Hospital.
Julian woke again to a cacophony of voices.
One of them was painfully familiar—and furious. He turned his head with difficulty and saw Ethan arguing with a group of doctors outside the hospital room.
“What do you mean, abuse? Did I abuse him?” Ethan demanded.
“He passed out. If he has stomach problems, that’s because he never eats properly.”
“There’s something wrong with him mentally. He has disgusting compulsions.”
“Julian and I have nothing to do with each other. I can’t stand being near him. He’s filthy.”
Every insult and accusation drove Julian’s heart deeper into the cold.
He turned his face away. His skin was nearly colorless, and an IV was still taped to the back of his right hand.
He had no parents. Now he had become this as well.
Perhaps dying would be easier.
With great effort, Julian reached up and pulled the needle from his hand. Blood immediately spilled across his skin.
The younger brother he had loved most had risen high above the clouds.
Julian, meanwhile, was nothing more than a stinking mass of mud sunk in a mire.
Ethan finished arguing with the doctors and clearly had no desire to remain in the Hospital. But when he turned, he saw the bright red blood covering Julian’s hand.
“What are you doing?”
He strode toward the bed and reached for Julian’s hand.
At once, images of the abuse flashed through Julian’s mind.
His body began to shake uncontrollably. He lurched upright and scrambled away from Ethan, awkwardly trying to escape his touch. Two years of Coercive Conditioning had carved the reaction too deeply into him to forget.
Ethan stared at him.
“You’re avoiding me again?”
The instinctive response beaten into him during his captivity made Julian tremble harder. His lips shook.