Once, not too long after his wife died, Shepard Lambrick sent his only son Julian to see a psychologist. He wasn't terribly concerned about the boy's mental health, but rather hoped that a few sessions with a doctor might teach his son how to control his increasingly…impulsive behavior. Of course, it was not to be. Julian returned not half an hour after the appointment's start time and flopped into an ornate armchair with a huff, lower lip slightly pooched out in the characteristic sulk he had come to adapt whenever he had to do something that he didn't want to do. Shep lowered the business journal he had been perusing and peered at his son.

"You're back soon. How was it?"

"Stupid. I left ten minutes in."

Shepard raised a brow. "Well, did you even tell him anything?"

"I told him he was a fucking idiot."

"Julian…"

"Well he is."

And that was that.

Shepard was not one to argue with the boy. He lectured him, of course, because he was very good at lecturing and enjoyed hearing himself orate. For his part Julian would sulk and roll his eyes and mutter noncommittal things to appease his father, ever the petulant teenager (even though his 24th birthday was staring him in the face, only a few months away). His father was an intimidating figure, both when doing business and when partaking in pleasure; scathingly witty, intelligent, and clever. Everything he did had a specific purpose. He rarely made mistakes. Yet when Julian disagreed with him and pushed back against his father's wishes, Shepard invariably found himself backing down.

There was something about the boy that touched a feeling that was deeper than Shep's frequent bouts of exasperation and frustration. He refused to admit to himself that the feeling might have a name. It was this feeling that seared him and shut him up when that particular look came over his son's face; when his pale eyes grew darker.

As soon as the boy entered his teens, Shepard had altogether ceased to trust him. Julian was obviously, for lack of a better word, disturbed. It was laughable, in a way, that the elder Lambrick thought anyone to be disturbed, given the terrible things he liked to do for pleasure. And Julian truly was his father's boy, something that bode ill for all involved with the Lambrick family. At first, Shepard had delighted in the similarities they shared when it came to extracurricular activities; he had feared for a time that Julian might inherit his mother's decidedly less violent nature and be uninterested in his father's party games. But those fears were soon assuaged, and Shepard began to think that surely this boy would, in turn, prove to be a fitting heir to the Lambrick family's beloved games of casual torture. Perhaps he might even find a way to make them even grander.

Something along the way, though, had gone wrong. Wrong even for a man like Julian's father.

At first, the changes were subtle, and could be easily dismissed as bouts of typical teenage angst. Julian was moody, his countenance reliably stormy. He had inherited his mother's beauty, her blonde hair, her light eyes, her willowy frame. But these lovely features had become occluded by what was becoming a typical, angry sulk. Many spoiled children had similar affectations, of course, but Julian's was darker, almost predatory. He became a poacher of the staff's good moods: if he saw one of them smiling or laughing he would fix them with a glare that could darken even the brightest of dispositions, and should he catch any of them humming or whistling he would quickly snap at them to cease. He would sit with his father during the evening news and chuckle at the violent stories, and Shep noticed that it was while Julian was witnessing violence that his eyes would shine with genuine mirth. No other time.

All of this Shepard could handle; he saw quite a bit of himself in his son during the younger years. Less ambitious than Shep himself had been in his youth, but no matter. Perhaps Julian was just a late bloomer.

Then, Mrs. Lambrick died. And the fits began.

They were violent, often bloody, and would terrify the staff, who before had only grumbled at his moods and whispered about bad breeding. Even the Lambrick's butler and head of staff Bevans, who had been with the family from the start, grew loathe to interact with his employer's son on one of his "bad days". Shepard had once presented Julian with a lovely (and valuable, of course) set of antique Damascus throwing daggers that he had inherited from his father, who had acquired them from an antiques dealer in Japan in the 1930's. At first, Julian had treated them reverently, often taking them out to polish them and admire them in bright light. Now, however, he had developed a penchant for hurling them at the walls when he was feeling angry. Once he had sent one straight into the middle of the huge flat screen TV that hung on his wall.

Sometimes, during his fits, he liked to hurl them at people.

Finally, the family physician prescribed a course of antipsychotics and mood stabilizers and benzos that "ought to knock the damn kid on his skinny ass", as he had muttered to Bevans upon departure. Bevans had only smiled.

Sometimes Julian took the medication agreeably enough, and the household would enjoy several days of peace and quiet while the young man slouched in his room, passive and compliant as a doll, staring glassy-eyed at the newly replaced TV, which constantly broadcasted violent movies and cartoons, and drinking himself further into a stupor.

And then there were the times he didn't take it.

After a few weeks of compliance, he would finally be trusted to administer his own medication. Of course, he did no such thing, but rather flushed the pills down the toilet and replaced them with liquor. He was clever in his own way, especially when he was feeling mean. After a few days of this deception his impulsive tendencies would return. He was a very good actor; he would sit in the drawing room or the dining room, slumped and passive, even smiling occasionally when spoken to, until a staff member felt safe enough to get within range.

The first time he did it, the victim was a young maid who had only worked there for a few weeks. He had flirted with her a bit, charmed her, told her she was lovely, and then stabbed the long tines of a salad fork deep into the meat of her breast. He had laughed himself to tears as she screamed, and was in hysterics by the time she passed out.

This became Julian's own little party game until finally the staff became too wary to fall for it any longer and avoided him completely. The only exception was Bevans, who was a large man and quite a bit touched in the head himself. He didn't fear Julian the way the rest of the help did. He had watched the boy grow up, and had learned to understand him in a way, sometimes even predict him. The elder Lambrick respected Bevans, heeded his suggestions, and even trusted him. He did not have to worry about being fired for mistreating Julian, and so, when he was suspicious that the young man was again neglecting his medication and in the beginnings of a fit, would enter Julian's room, shut the door behind him, and grab the damn kid, physically forcing the pills down his throat and often getting bitten in the process while his employer sat oblivious downstairs. The work of holding Julian down and keeping him from throwing up until the pills began to take effect soon grew tiresome for the older man, and so had met privately with the family's physician and acquired several vials of thorazine and a plethora of syringes.

At first, it had not gone particularly well. Bevans had miscalculated the dose and ended up with too little, and when he finally got the needle into Julian's hip the little shit struggled so violently that it snapped off.

The second time was easier, and by the fourth time Bevans was a pro.

Bevans, as long as he had known Julian, had never felt much fondness for him, and therefore felt no pity when things got violent. He was happy enough to drug the boy, and even more so to lie about it to his father. Shep, in his opinion, was delusional regarding his son. Lambrick held out false hope that his son would inherit the same acumen for business and the same elegance for subtle tortures as he and his father before him. It was impossible for him to admit that his son was far too damaged to achieve such a higher purpose. He was damaged goods; a lost cause.

But yet, Julian was the only fragment of Shepard's beloved wife that he had left; his son, his only child. Despite his fragile state of mental health, despite the dawning notion that he might actually fear his son, Shepard truly believed that Julian was destined for greatness, an heir not only to the Lambrick fortune, but an heir to the suffering and importance it beget.

The mission, for now, was to take everything one day at a time. It would prove to be much harder than it sounded.