Zane was in the kitchen the next morning, eating some warmed-up lasagna, when Zack and Marie came in. They stared at him as if they had waked up to find a stranger in their kitchen.

"Zane," Zack said, clearing his throat. His eyes looked red rimmed and his face drawn and older than last night.

"Yeah?" Zane said, marveling at the cold steadiness of his voice. He took a sip of soda.

"Are you all right?"

It was such a ludicrous question, but it was so like his big brother to ask.

"Well, let’s see," Zane said coolly, not looking at him. "I just found out that I’m some kind of a key, and that I’m not even remotely real. I’ve been sitting here realizing you’ve been lying to me." Zane shrugged. "Other than that, I’m fine."

Marie looked like she was about to burst into tears. In fact, she looked like she had been crying throughout the night. "Zane," she said. "Maybe we were wrong in not telling you. But we had our reasons. We love you, and we’ll always be here for you."

Zane couldn’t stay cool any longer. "Your reasons?" he exclaimed. "You had good reasons for not telling me the most important fact of my life? There are no good reasons for that!"

"Zane, stop," Zack said, his voice wobbling. "We’re a family. You’re my brother."

Zane laughed rudely. "My brother? My brother?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Yeah, right! "Oh hey, brother," he greeted brightly. "What kind of metal are you made from?" At the last moment his voice turned hard and fierce.

Zack tried to go over to him, but he backed away. Zane couldn’t stand the sight of them right at that second. Zack looked stricken.

"Look, let’s just not say anything right now," Marie said. "We need some time. We all had a shock. Please, Zane, just hear me on one thing: I have two cousins whom I love more than anything in the world. Two cousins."

"Zack is your cousin!" Zane spat, hating to hear his voice crack. "Biologically! Me? I’m nobody! I’m just a key!"

"Moving is going to be insane," Jean said. Scott reached over and squeezed her shoulder. They looked at each other as if no one was in the room. "We have stuff scattered everywhere."

"Fortunately, I have a very good friend who has the power to move things with his mind," Scott offered brightly, looking over at Zane.

Zane stared at him. Even Scott had been playing into this whole fantasy that was his life. Even him, a great friend, had been lying and keeping secrets from him.

"Scott, do you know why nobody ever told me I was just a key?" Zane put it out there, and it was as if he had mentioned something blasphemous.

Everyone stared at him, and a silent and deadly hush fell over the table.

Scott looked like he had swallowed a frog. His eyes wide, he said, "What?" and shot quick glances at Zack and Marie.

"I mean, don’t you think somebody should have told me? Or maybe just mentioned it? You could have said something, you know. Or maybe you just didn’t think it was important," Zane pressed on. He couldn’t stop himself. "No one else seems to. After all, it’s just my life we’re talking about."

"Zane," Marie said in a defeated tone of voice.

"Uh…" Scott said, for once at a loss for words.

"Never mind," Zane said abruptly, standing up. "We can talk about it later. Why not? After twenty one years, what’s a few days more?"

"Zane, I always felt that Zack and Marie should be the ones to tell you -" Scott said, sounding nervous.

"Yeah, right," Zane said rudely. "And when’s that going to happen?"

Her eyes closed, Marie gasped and her body jerked, and Zane pushed his chair back roughly. He couldn’t stand being here one more second. He couldn’t take their hypocrisy anymore. If he did, he would explode.

This time, he remembered to grab his jacket before he ran out to his car and peeled off into the darkness.

It was as if Marie’s world was filled with gray smoke, or as if the place she had stumbled on to was cloaked in thick fog. The images were jumbled. There was a liquor store. There was a young man in a jacket. There was a girl. There was another guy. He was holding something black and hard.

It was a gun.

Was she observing a hold-up? The images blurred, and for a moment Marie thought that the vision was going end. She tried to see clearer. Who were these people? The girl looked familiar, and so was the guy in the jacket. But the other one wasn’t someone she knew.

What was it about the first guy’s jacket? It meant something. It was red, completely red. The red jacket is important, the vision seemed to scream at her. The vision focused in tighter on it.

The second guy pointed his gun at it. For a second, the red was all Marie could see. Then there was a flash of fire, and the guy in the jacket was on the floor with the girl kneeling beside him. His face was covered with blood. Marie could hardly see the man with the gun anymore. But now she could see the girl more clearly. And the guy beside her, too.

Then like a puff of smoke, her vision ended, and she saw five pairs of worried eyes looking at her.

Marie began to shake.

The girl in the vision was her.

And the guy in the red jacket… was Zane.

"Zane!" Marie called.

He didn’t notice her. He was too busy looking the other way. Looking…

God, no! Marie’s mind screamed.

Zane finally saw someone, but not someone he wanted. Leaning over the counter, he suddenly jerked back up, dropping his bottle of Vanilla Coke and bag of Doritos. He staggered back from the counter on unsteady legs.

Marie broke into a full spring. She crashed through the twin glass doors just as a thin mustached figure in a black jacket appeared. He came from the rear of the store, with a partner at his back.

It was the guy in her vision.

In his hand was a gun.

It was raised in Zane’s direction.

"Stop!" Marie screamed.

Marie jumped as she had never jumped in her life. She leapt directly at Zane’s waist. Trying to outrace the bullet, or even the finger on the trigger – either would have been fine – but she had about fifteen feet cover, and no human could beat a bullet in a race, and the skinny guy’s trigger finger had only a fraction of an inch to cover.

She was in midair when she saw the burst of fire and heard the crack of thunder. The bullet struck Zane on the left side of the head. Blood spurted into the air.

Marie slammed into Zane, and the two of them hit the floor.