She gave Kody and Nick a droll stare. “I’ll bet if you tried to give him a snickerdoodle today, he’d scream like a girl and run for cover.” She paused and narrowed her eyes. Then a wide smile broke across her face. “I know what I’m making for dinner.” She grinned at Bubba. “You got any cinnamon in your kitchen, Bugaboo? Or is it all half-empty cereal boxes and Snickers like normal?”
“I got a loaf of bread and some peanut butter, too.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to insult you.” Her voice shook with laughter and sarcasm.
Nick laughed. “I like your mama, Bubba. She’s a lot of fun.”
“That’s ’cause she’s not busting your chops. As my dad would say, she’s like a head injury. Only funny when it happens to somebody else.”
He wouldn’t argue that. No one was immune from the blistering tongue of maternal criticism. But Nick wanted to return to something Bubba’s mom had mentioned that he hadn’t known about Bubba. Something he just couldn’t wrap his mind around. “Did you really play football?”
Bubba shrugged nonchalantly. “For a little while.”
“Little while, my pink patootie.” His mama turned her attention back to Nick and Kody. “Let me tell you about my baby boy, Nick. He was a first-string linebacker. One of the best you ever saw. When he wasn’t blowing stuff up around the house conducting bizarre experiments,” she glanced sideways at Bubba, “like the time he tried to launch the TV into space for the aliens to see—”
“Mama, I was four years old, let it go already. Dang … Do something stupid around your mama, one time, when you’re four years old and you never live it down.”
She ignored his interruption. “… He had a football in his hands and was leaving everybody in his wake. No one could catch him. The people who knew better than to mock him used to call him Battleground Bulldozer Burdette or Trip B for short. He had a full-blown football and academic scholarship to MIT, where he was one of their most valued players all four years he was there. He had offers to go pro and I don’t mean one or two teams. He was the number-one draft pick and was promised everything you can imagine if he’d sign. He could have played for any NFL team, anywhere.”
Nick was completely stunned. He’d had no idea. Bubba never really talked about his past, and the fact that he was a football star.…
That absolutely shamed Nick’s Peewee Bowl Championship wins he was so proud of. “Why didn’t you go pro?”
A deep sadness creased Bubba’s brow. “I had a lot of reasons that made sense to me back then.” He swallowed hard. “It doesn’t matter anyway.… I’d have probably had a massive injury on the field that would have cut my career short. As they say, all good things come to an end. Now, moving out of the past ’cause there ain’t no reason to be there, let’s talk about this cybernut on the loose at your school. You guys got a major problem.”
“Yeah, we know.”
“No, Nick, you don’t.” He crooked his finger for him to follow into the back of the shop.
Nick headed in and as soon as he saw the monitor where Mark was working, he froze. There were all kinds of photos on the site about his classmates. Some pretty graphic. Some gross. And some were just wrong. “What the…”
Mark let out a long breath. “If this weren’t cruel, I’d be impressed by the skill level. Someone spent a lot of time and they’ve done some incredible PI work on a whole lot of people.”
“But what concerns us most is this link.” Bubba took the mouse from Mark’s hand and clicked on the word “Sources.” “They’ve named everyone who gave them information on someone else.”
Nick ground his teeth as he read over the list and saw his own name listed as an informer. “They’re absolutely lying. I never told anyone anything about Spencer. Nothing. Not even my mama.” In that moment, he wanted to find the site owner and back over them with his poor driving skills. “What’s under ‘Cyblog’?”
Mark clicked on it. “The social ramblings of a jealous lunatic—keeping in mind that the man who is making this accusation against the site owner sleeps in duck urine and rather than go to a bar to troll for dates, spends his nights in the gator-infested swamp searching for zombies with Bubba. Believe me, I know crazy when I see it.”
Shaking his head, Nick didn’t comment on that as he read the rantings against his classmates. Mark moved his hand so that Nick could take possession of the mouse.
There was a photo of some of the cheerleaders, including Casey, from the haunted house his school was sponsoring. Under the photo—These are some of the nauseating fleas I have to stomach in class. Couldn’t you just puke? Look at them, the only thing smaller than their IQs is their skirts. Vo-mit.
Nick let out a low whistle. “I’m not sure I want to know what’s under the ‘Classmates’ link.”
Mark crossed his arms over his chest. “No, you probably don’t. It’s basically pages they’ve set up with doctored photos of your classmates in sexually explicit acts, or naked.”
Nick decided to take his word for it. Until Madaug perfected his eye bleach formula, he didn’t need to see something that would disgust him. “And you can’t find anything on the person who did this?”
“Nada, buddy. Nil. Nothing.”
This was so bad.
Bubba put a comforting hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep working on it. We’re going to find out who’s responsible.”
“Thanks, Bubba.” Sickened by the kind of callous individual who could do this to someone who’d never harmed him or her, Nick faced Kody. “I’m going home before I get into any more trouble, and wait for my mom to get off work.”
“Okay. Call me if you need anything.”
Most people would hear that and think she meant for him to use a phone. But he had several ways to contact her that didn’t require anything more than his thoughts
He kissed her on the cheek before he left out the back door of the building. If ever his powers would work correctly for him, now would be the time.
Unfortunately, the only thing he could see about the future was his coming restriction that would hang over his head until graduation.
At least it didn’t take long to make it home. He went inside and locked the door, then cursed as he remembered he’d left his backpack at Sanctuary. He wouldn’t be able to finish his homework until late tonight.
You could go get it.
Yeah, and chance another severe tongue-lashing from the mothership? No, thank you.
Grumbling at his own stupidity, he went to his room. He kicked off his shoes, then threw himself across his bed and reached for the radio. He needed some loud, make-the-neighbors-hate-my-guts music to improve his dismal outlook.
But as he reached for the controls, a chill went down his spine.
Unsure of what it meant, he scanned the room and …
Every protection sign he had on his walls—signs that were never visible to the naked eye unless something inhuman was trying to get to him—was lit up like Christmas in the Quarter. His walls literally glowed bloodred …
Crap! He was under attack.
CHAPTER 6
Nick rolled off the bed and grabbed his baseball bat from the corner … yeah, okay, stupid weapon against the paranormal, but it was better than nothing.