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Chapter Three

The safe house turned out to be only about a mile or so away from the camp.

"It's a fast enough flight to and from the camp in case anything happens." my mum explained. "There's a room for each of you and plenty of food in the cupboards."

Iggy immediately started to walk around, gliding his fingers over surfaces, to get the feel of the place. Gazzy, Angel and Nudge ran down the hall and you could clearly hear their shouts of "This one's my room!" "The next one's mine!" "No! I wanted that one!".

"This is great, mum. Thanks." I said

My mum smiled at me. "Jeb is the one that organized the safe house."

"Oh." I said.

"Jeb will be staying here with you." She said.

Fang was looking out the window, scanning the surroundings, but when he heard my mum his head whipped around to stare at her. He trusted Jeb as much as I did. Which was none.

"What?" I said, more than a little outraged, at exactly the same time Iggy asked "Why?"

"It's for protection. He'll be able to contact the camp right away if something happens."

I was about to argue when Nudge came back down the hall. "Hey everyone. Why is there an extra room?" she asked my mum.

"Jeb is going to stay with us." I said sourly. I was not happy about this.

"Why?" she asked, puzzled.

Just then I heard one of those safari jeep things pull up outside.

"He's here." Fang said, still by the window.

Three guesses on who he was talking about.

I took a deep breathe and sent my mum a strained expression before Jeb came in. I wanted to make sure she knew how much I was not liking this.

"Hello, everyone." Jeb said, coming in the door. "What do you think of the house?"

"It's awesome!" Gazzy announced, coming back down the hall with Angel.

Completely ignoring Jeb, I asked my mum "Where will you be staying?"

"I'll be staying back at the refuge camp." She said.

"Why not stay here?" I offered.

"Well…" she said, thinking it over.

"I could share a room another flock member. Then there would be an extra room." I said.

"You can share with me, Max." Angel said, smiling sweetly at me.

"See! Now you can stay." I said

"Alright then." My mum agreed.

"This is going to be so cool!" Nudge said excitedly. "We're going to be like explorers or-"

"Not exactly." Jeb cut her off before she could get going. "This won't be like Antarctica or even when you were working with he navy. This time you'll be actually working ith the people you're helping." He explained.

"You'll start tomorrow bright and early." My mum said.

"There's also…" Jeb hesitated.

"What?" I asked, using my no-nonsense tone. Actually, it was more like my tell-me-or-I'll-kill-you tone. Yeah, more like that.

"There's a very rich man who has donated a lot of money towards the work done by the CSM. He would like to meet all of you." Jeb said.

My alarm bells started ringing before he finished talking. I knew he was lying to me. Or he wasn't telling me everything. Or he was editing something.

Most likely all three.

But frankly, after the long flight across Africa, I was too tired to care. I could beat whatever he was hiding out of him tomorrow. Right now I just wanted to sleep.

"Alright. Come on guys. Let's go to bed." I said, taking Angel's hand and leading my flock down the hall to our rooms. They all murmured goodnights to my mum and Jeb.

After we stacked fists and the flock had all gone to bed, Fang and I were standing outside my and Angel's room.

"You have a bad feeling about this rich guy." Fang said. It was a statement, not a question. Just another show of how well he knew me.

"Yeah," I whispered back. "I can't really explain it, I just feel like something bad is going to happen, you know?"

"Yeah." He paused. "But whatever it is we can handle it." He said, pushing a piece of my hair out of my eyes.

And he was right. There was more than enough proof that we could handle anything that was thrown at us.

"Yeah, we can." I agreed, smiling.

"Now get some sleep," he ordered. "You look dead on your feet."

"Gee, thanks." I said sarcastically.

"Okay, good night" he said.

"Night." I replied.

He kissed me quickly and sweetly before heading down the hall to his room.

Man, what would I do without him?

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