Safiya held up her hand, and Ivy slapped it weakly. “So, now that that’s sorted,”—she blew out a long breath—“we’ve got an election to run.”
“Oh, Saf, come on—”
“It’s in the charter,” she said in a voice tinged with frailty. “We already tempted it once, and look how that turned out.”
Ivy glanced around the room full of bloodied and battered creatures though they all looked fairly human in that state, then back to Safiya. “Fine, but that means I won’t be the interim assistant to the interim president anymore.”
“Ugh, aren’t you glad?”
“A little.” She chuckled. “But you’ll still hang out with me, right? Even if I have to move away?”
“You’re not moving away,” she said with haste, pulling herself back up and reaching out a hand. “Pauline’s going to need a bakery assistant, and Hunter’s going to need, well…you’ll figure that out, I’m sure. And me? I still need a friend.”
Ivy took her hand. “That’s a deal.”
She smirked. “Good. Now we gotta get those ballot boxes out.”
Ivy turned to follow her, glancing out the propped open door of the clubhouse to the front lawn littered with fallen leaves. In the distance the bare trees swayed in the grey lights of early morning and the sun was fuzzy behind heavy clouds, and a flash of green scales and a bright red wattle went zooming by. Her body tensed, and she almost bolted after it, then she turned away. There would be plenty of days to come where she could run after the cockatrice, but for now they had an election to run.
And finally after that, she was going home.
The Association is a self-published work which means there is no fancy publishing house or marketing team to get the word out, so if you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review or letting people know on social media.
For more work by A. K. Caggiano, please visit:
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Thank you, Dear Reader, I hope this brought you joy.
The Association Page 30