End Game (Games Thriller Series) by J.E. Taylor Page B

anger.
    Sharon pulled the trigger again, this time, the bullet ripped through her bare shoulder, leaving an oozing bullet hole. Jessica still didn’t flinch. Sharon stormed across the room and put the gun to her forehead.
    “Jessie!” Chris screamed, shooting up in their bed, his entire body drenched in sweat and his breath coming in short bursts.
    Jessica flew into the room, her eyes snapping to the mirror like Pavlov’s dog, half-expecting to see the sadistic ghost of his stepbrother again.
    “I’m okay. It was just a nightmare,” he said and the panic on her face eased. He tried to smile, but the vividness of the dream gnawed at him, reminding him of the dreams leading up to the horror that happened with Frank’s ghost. “Jesus.” He ran his hands over his face and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
    “Are you really ok ay?” she asked, sensing the turmoil within him. He was blocking her from getting in again.
    Chris nodded. “Yeah.” He headed into the bathroom without looking back at her.
    Jessica followed him. “What was the nightmare about?”
    Chris looked over his shoulder at her with the shower stall open. “Losing you.” He slipped into the shower.
    He closed his eyes as the water cascaded over his body, wiping any traces of tension from his muscles. He lathered his hair with shampoo and rinsed and just stood under the stream of water. Chris let his mind wander back to the dream, analyzing it.
    The room she had been in looked like a mechanical room ; the walls were brick with exposed metal studs. Plumbing and electrical wires were visible in the walls. The chains that Jessica had been tied with were looped on the plumbing pipes and secured together with what looked like padlocks, not actually built in the wall like at the complex. Handcuffs held her wrists to the end of the chains. The flooring looked like double plywood planking.
    Chris furrowed his brow forcing the details to the forefront of his mind. If he could identify the place, he could prevent the dream from coming true. After all, he had been able to alter the future once before.
    He slowly opened his eyes. She hadn’t been alone in that room either. “Jesus.” He turned and put his hands on the wall, letting the water hit the back of his neck and closed his eyes again. “What else?”
    In his mind, he scanned the room and his eyes landed on the four children. Chris’s lungs seized and he couldn’t breathe, his eyes flying open like broken shutters. What he saw crushed his heart. He hitched in his breath and exhaled slowly, hell bent on changing their future so that vision never saw the light of day.
    Chris turned the water off and wrapped a towel around his waist. He wiped the steam off the mirror and looked at his reflection. “Over my dead body,” he whispered at his reflection and shivered, pushing the dream into the depths of his mind, closing the door and locking it so no one would be able to get to those images but him.

Chapter 15
     
    “Who else is going to the game?” Chris pulled out of the garage in their car, the boys hooked in the back and playing their handheld games.
    “I think only Danny and LeAnn. I’m not sure if they are bringing Sandy or if they have a sitter.”
    “ Sandy’s coming?” Tommy asked from the back seat.
    “I’m not sure , honey.” Jessica replied. “But this isn’t playtime, we are there to watch Eric’s game, not horse around. Understand?”
    “Yeah.” Tommy sulked and went back to his game. CJ had drifted off to sleep.
    Chris looked at her sideways, sending her a grin full of mischief.
    “That goes for you as well,” Jessica said , pointing at him.
    “Can’t I mess with Dan just a little?”
    “No,” Jessica said and looked back at the kids. “Tommy, why don’t you put the game down and take a little nap like your brother.”
    “Ok ay, Mommy,” he said and closed the game, putting it on the seat next to him. Within a few minutes, he was sleeping too.
    “Now why