Taylor rarely remembers her dreams, good or bad, but there's one that never quite goes away. She'll be sitting at the dinner table and catch the flash of gold from her aunt's hair and think of the gold in her dream, dulled by gray smoke and watery sunlight; her daddy will frown and she'll remember the turned-down corners of full lips and a hissed warning of things to come.

The dream changes from time to time, just small things that seem so large in hindsight when she wakes up screaming, sweat making her hair stick to her face. She doesn't have the words to describe it until she's much older and it's much too late, but the feeling of dread in her belly makes her feel sick.

It always starts the same, with a voice calling out her name and thick cloud-cover casting everything in shades of muted grays and sickly yellows. It's hard to breathe through it all, even harder to find her way around without tripping over debris. Everything's destroyed in the dream, buildings toppled into piles of stones, streets broken and caved-in in places.

Taylor picks her way past it carefully, afraid of what will happen if she gets cut by an exposed piece of steel.

Taylor, the voice yells, delighted and anxious in the same breath. She follows it through the mist, bare feet slapping against the asphalt. Tay, come look! She wants to shout that she's coming, but her voice is stuck in her throat like a wad of bubblegum.

She makes it to a side street that she knows turns to dirt halfway down it, a path to the beach she and her daddy used to collect seashells at. That's when the woman appears, blonde-haired and sharp angles in the dappled light. There's ash smeared across her cheek and she doesn't even seem to realize it as she comes to a stop and looks over her shoulder.

"Careful," the blonde girl cautions. "Here there be monsters."

And the blonde girl laughs, a sound like bells as she throws her head back. Taylor wants to ask what she means, to beg for any information about how to stop this from happening. The girl sobers, reaching out a hand as though to cup Taylor's cheek but faltering halfway through. Her nails are pink.

"You can't change the future, Princess. You just have to keep a good head on your shoulders because he's going to need our support." Taylor's head tilts to the right and the confusion she feels must be evident on her face because those sharp angles turn soft. "Trust him and he'll see you through this."

Taylor! Both of them snap their attention back to the path, and Taylor can make out a faint smudge through the fog. It grows clearer after a time, black shadows morphing into a pinkish-red dinner jacket tightly fitted over a set of broad shoulders. The figure comes to stand next to the girl and his hair is the same color, bright like sunshine in the dismal surroundings.

"Trust him," the girl repeats, resting a hand on the man's arm. Her grip is tight and her nails bite into the fabric of the jacket, but the man doesn't flinch away from it. He just smiles, a strange, dark thing that reminds Taylor of the lions she saw in the zoo. Dangerous.

Trust us.

Tabby looks up from her book when she hears a car door slamming shut outside. She figured she was just hearing things at first since nothing interesting has happened all year after that nosey real estate agent got murdered at a hotel. As the sound of Constance's voice drifts in through the opened window, Tabby leaps to her feet and sprints across the room to look out with Tate right behind her.

"Who the fuck is that," Tate asks with furrowed brows. Tabby doesn't answer at first, taking in the little girl that's standing next to Constance's minivan. She isn't very old, maybe eight at the most, and she has pale gold hair that falls straight past her shoulders, and a little button of a nose. She'd probably be cute if not for the massive bruise taking up the right side of her face and the split upper lip.

"Just wait right here for a second," Constance says, patting the kid's shoulder before disappearing into the house next door. The little girl turns to look to the right, gray eyes traveling from the top of the murder house—as people have taken to calling it now—all the way down to the neatly cut hedges surrounding the property. Her gaze comes to linger on the twins, as though she can actually see them instead of just some fluttering curtains.

"Can she see us, Tabby Cat?"

"Of course not," Tabby snaps, but she isn't so sure herself. She's heard of people that can see spirits without them making themselves known, the ones with real talent and no ambition of stardom like a certain Craigslist psychic Constance is fond of. "She looks familiar, though."

"Hey, didn't we have a couple of cousins that lived near here?"

"That's right, another set of siblings." Tabby nods as she remembers the slightly older girls that had tormented them when they were all kids. Monica and Shelby were the daughters of Constance's sister and only ever came for one weekend in the summer, leading to big fights between all of them. Hugo had nearly knocked Monica's head off when she'd slapped at Tate and it's pretty much the only good memory has had of her father. "She must be that kid Constance was going on about last year."

"Yeah, the one that got on TV without having to flash her tits." Tate laughs at that, taking glee in the fact that an eight year old has more acting chops than the woman verging on seventy. "What was her name again? Tyler, Kayla?"

"Taylor Valiente." She narrows her eyes at the kid, head tilted as she takes in the familiar cheekbones that comes from her mother's side of the family and the smooth brown skin that comes from her Cuban father's. Nico or something, Tabby thinks, gave cash as birthday presents until Tabby and Tate had been killed in '94.

Constance comes back out of the house a moment later, Michael in tow with his beautiful hair glinting in the sunlight. Even at five, he's a composed little man that holds himself with pride as he walks with his hand caught in Constance's grip. Tabby's seen how he is around other kids, the way he stares them down until they're either crying or running for the hills. This is different, though, he actually cracks a smile when he spots his cousin.

"Hello," he greets, blue eyes taking in everything. "I'm Michael." Taylor doesn't say anything, finally tearing her eyes away from the window so she can look at the new boy.

"Michael," Constance introduces," this is Taylor. She'll be staying with us from now on."

"Is she an orphan like me?" The older woman pauses, floundering for a second before settling on a resigned sigh and a nod. He takes a step forward and reaches out to grasp Taylor's hand in one of his, the excitement in his eyes foreign. This isn't the cat that ate the canary like Tabby is used to, this is an intense fascination that will either lead to a lifelong friendship or murder. Hell, it could be both if he brings her over here for a visit.

"Why don't we go inside and get her settled in?"

"Okay, Constance." The blonde grimaces at his use of her name and she sends a dark look at the house her kids live in before leading the way into her own home. Michael and Taylor don't follow immediately, the kids turning to send one last glance at the window the twins are leaning out of. Michael blows a kiss their way and Taylor does something that sends something like shock jolting Tabby's system, then she's being tugged inside the house by the hold Michael has on her.

Taylor had waved at them.

Later that afternoon, when she's lying in a new bed in a new home, the word that's eluded her for years comes to Taylor. The one that describes the fallen buildings and lack of humanity in her nightmare, the one that's been dancing on the tip of her tongue since she was four years old.

Apocalyptic.