My characters placed in a modern setting....

Lucien stared in mute shock, disbelief like a shadow crossing over his face, as he took in the man and the gun in front of him.

"I bet you didn't think you'd see me again," the gunman said, the hint of a maniacal smile curving his lips. "Nothing to say, Lucien?"

Lucien's mouth opened and closed soundlessly as he fought with his raging emotions. Deftly he tried to gauge the distance he could run before the gunman pulled the trigger, or how accurate the man's aim might be.

At last he whispered, "Lucas?"

Lucien absently rubbed the scar on his left cheekbone. A scar that had begun to fade over the years. An image flashed into his mind of a copper pipe and pain flared in his cheek once more. The memory, even after all these years was still so near. He glared at Lucas with a hatred tempered over the long years since his absence.

The man with the gun smiled, clearly sensing Lucien's discomfort. His smile revealed his nearly perfect white teeth. He was missing both canines on the right side of his mouth. He held up a key, which dangled from a decrepit looking antique chain.

"I used the house key," he answered simply. "All these years and you have never, not once, changed the locks. Why is that I wonder?"

As he spoke he waved the gun around in a careless manner, causing Lucien to back up and ultimately find himself unable to move any further as he collided with a wall.

"Would you be careful with that," Lucien snarled, holding up his hands in a placating manner, in hopes of diffusing the tension from his outburst.

The gun leveled on him again.

The young man's eyes had darkened at Lucien's words. Piercing green eyes peered out from disheveled blonde hair; a deep shadow hid half his face. But what Lucien could make out of the other half was dark and unhappy, eyes crested by eyebrows that arrowed in sharply. Arrowed in due to an anger, virtually unchecked.

"Be careful?" he echoed quietly. "Now why would I want to do that?"

He continued right on talking, but for the most part was ignored by Lucien who was more concerned with devising some sort of plan to free himself from this dire predicament.

The entirety of this time the young man's piercing gaze never once left Lucien's face. He seemed to be soaking in the telltale wrinkles that came with age, memorizing every line and contour of Lucien's face, with a great attention to the details. The scar that was just below Lucien's left temple, faded with the passing of time, but still visible to those who had a desire to find it.

"...Remember this?"

Lucien, startled by the sudden directness of the Lucas' attentions, looked up into the young man's haunted eyes, eyes that held the knowledge of men at least twice his age.

The young man was pointing to his missing teeth.

"Do you remember that day?"

"Lucas, I-"

"Do you remember that day!?" the young man bellowed. He appeared to be reliving some long forgotten past. A past he could never forget. A past that haunted him still.

"Now Lucas, I don't know how you found me and I'm not sure how you got out, but this has to stop," Lucien said as calmly as he could. "No one needs to get hurt, and no one wants you to regret anything you might do while in this state of mind."

"Regret?" Lucas asked quietly. His eyes held a far off look to them, as if he was caught between the past and the present that stood before him.

Lucien nodded, "You don't want to do anything you might re-"

"Do you regret?" Lucas asked, cutting him off. "Do you regret what you did that day? Do you have any idea what she's gone through because of you? She had to watch her brother as he was carted off to prison, and fend for herself for three years."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Lucas. You're delusional. You need help. I would never harm my daughter in any way."

Lucas shook his head in disbelief, the gun falling to his side as he held his head in his free hand, his features covered by his splayed palm. He breathed in ragged gasps, desperately trying to block out the memories that had chosen to resurface. At his side the gun shook with the trembling of his body. A trembling that came with reminders of the past.

He remembered that day ten years ago. He had come home from school, excited at the prospect of his twelfth birthday. However, the house had been silent. At least, it had been from all outward appearances. He had pulled the house key from his pocket. A key he still kept on him at all times lest he forget that day.

He trembled with remembrances of that beating. The fire that had seared his split lip. The metallic taste and smell of his own blood. The right side of his face and body had been bruised black and blue for the better part of two weeks. The agony from that beating and the resulting bruising dulled in comparison to what Lucien had done next. In his blind fury he had taken the poker from the fire and branded Lucas numerous times, details he had never shared with Leena. His hatred for his father had done little more than fester and grow that day.

Upon opening the front door he had heard Leena's screams coming from the vicinity of the basement. Panic and adrenaline had made his heart flutter in his chest, fear nearly blinding him as he had run down the stairs to confront his father as his younger sister was struck to the ground by Lucien's left fist. Her screams were silenced in this manner. This time his father had gone too far. Thus he had rushed to his sister's side and taken the brunt of his father's anger. An anger that had knocked out two of his teeth. Teeth he had never had replaced.

The following events were still a blur, his memory of exactly what had happened unclear, even to this day. Perhaps that could be explained by the amount of times his father had hit him. He had never really been too sure.

He remembered his sister's screams with clarity upon her wakening to find him bleeding, the smell of charred flesh overpowering, as he still stood in front of her, keeping the much larger and stronger figure at bay.

The next punch his father had thrown at him had been easily dodged, throwing his father off balance and causing him to fall. Lucas had then searched the immediate area for something, anything to use as a weapon. An old piece of copper pipe had been lying on the floor a few feet away and that had been his only choice at the time. He had taken the pipe and struck his father with it, knocking him unconscious and leaving behind a scar that had never faded.

Now was a time for answers, a time for retribution, and consolation of the past.

"Do you?" Lucas shouted. "Do you regret anything? Anything at all?"

Lucas was taken completely by surprise as Lucien lunged at him and took the gun from his loosened grip.

They faced each other. Lucien holding the gun level with Lucas' chest.

"How does it feel now?" Lucien asked.

Lucas' hands moved in a blur as he drew a second gun and held it level, as he stared at Lucien with a deep and ever growing hatred.

"You decided this, ten years ago, but no more. No longer will I let you hide."

"I'm sorry, so sorry....don't do this Lucas," Lucien said his finger tensing on the trigger, as he was consumed by laughter. "Lucas....my son-"

"Too late dad."

And he pulled the trigger.