Chosen Blood

Chapter 2 - Exile

The house that once roared with laughter now felt like a mausoleum.

Aya—three years older than Hima and Abi—sat on the edge of her parents’ bed, clutching their mother’s silk scarf as if stitches could sew the past back together. Hima stood at the window, arms crossed, jaw tight.

Abi leaned in the doorframe, silent and watchful.

Lola Estrella entered, her cane clicking softly against the floor. Her face was composed, but her eyes were stormy. “My grandchildren,” she said firmly.

“you cannot stay here. Not now. The people who killed your parents will not stop.

I will remain in Thailand to handle what your mother and father left behind. But you three…” She paused, looking at each of them.

“You must go. The Philippines is safer for now.”

Aya’s voice cracked. “Lola… what will happen to you here alone?”

“I am not weak, Aya,” the old woman replied, lifting her chin.

“My fight is here. But you are”—she softened as she looked at the younger girls—“still young. Your fight is yet to come.”

Hima finally spoke, low and hard. “This isn’t running. It’s regrouping. Don’t think for a second I’m letting this go.”

Abi smirked from the doorway, folding her arms. “Good. I’d rather follow a warpath than hide like a mouse.”

Lola sighed, then pressed a kiss to each of their foreheads. “Remember, blood is not only what we lose—it is what we carry. Don’t forget who you are.”

The airport lights were harsh as the three walked side by side through the terminal.

Hima, hoodie up, kept her head low but moved with brittle confidence.

Aya clutched her bag like an anchor—older, quieter, protective.

Abi trailed with two rolling suitcases, a backpack stuffed with notebooks, and glasses sliding down her nose.

“Are we really safe here?” Aya whispered.

Hima glanced over her shoulder. “For now. But safe doesn’t last forever. This is a pause.”

Abi didn’t look up from her tablet. “Statistically speaking, assassins don’t usually strike in airports—too many cameras, too much paperwork.” She grinned. “So yeah, relax. We’re seventy-eight percent safe.”

Aya gave her a look that was part horror, part annoyance. “That’s not comforting, Abi!”

“Hey, seventy-eight is still a passing grade. Would you prefer fifty?” Abi pushed her glasses up.

Hima stopped, forcing the others to halt.

Her eyes found Aya’s. “Listen. I haven’t forgotten what happened. I won’t. But if we break down now, we hand them everything. Do you want that?”

Aya’s lips trembled, but she shook her head. The weight of being older sat on her like armor—she felt it in Hima’s gaze and in the small ways Abi leaned on her. She wouldn’t fail them.

Abi’s smirk softened. She closed the tablet and draped an arm around Aya’s shoulders. “Then we keep moving forward. Crying won’t bring them back.

But maybe…” Her grin sharpened. “…math, strategy, and a bit of genius planning will.”

Aya sniffled, half-annoyed, half-comforted. Hima nodded and they moved on.

The humid night hit them as they stepped out: jeepneys honking, neon buzzing, vendors shouting rapid Tagalog. Manila was alive—messy and relentless.

“It’s so… messy,” Aya wrinkled her nose.

Abi adjusted her backpack, eyes wide. “Messy? Aya, this is a living system—unregulated traffic, unoptimized street vending, a decentralized local economy. It’s a sandbox. Infinite possibilities.”

Hima scanned the streets with an analytical gaze that belied her years. “Chaos means no one’s in control. That makes it easier to take control.”

Aya, horrified, snapped, “We just lost our parents, Hima, and you’re already talking about… control?”

Before Hima could answer, Abi raised a hand like a student.

“Technically, she’s not wrong. In chaos theory, a small input can reshape an entire system. Which means…” she pushed up her glasses, “…with the right moves, we could own this place.”

“Abi! This isn’t a game,” Aya said.

Abi’s humor dropped away.

Her voice turned steady, serious. “I know it’s not.

But if you want to survive—if you want revenge—start thinking like it is.”

A van sent by distant relatives pulled up.

As they climbed in, Aya leaned against the window, holding back tears.

The three-year gap between her and the younger girls threaded through her silence—older, more protective, carrying the burden of responsibility.

Abi pulled out a notebook and began to scribble plans in fast, precise handwriting.

Hima sat between them, expression cold and unyielding.

In her eyes burned a vow no tears could quench. They took my family.

Now I’ll take everything from them.

The house they rented in Manila was nothing like the Malisorn mansion. Modest, almost plain—iron gates, a small garden, cement walls that felt more like armor than home.

But for Aya, Hima, and Abi, it was where they would begin again.

A month in, the rhythm of their new life had started to form.

Aya, now twenty and deep in pre-med, kept their mother’s annotated textbooks stacked on her desk.

Anatomy charts lined her walls. She returned from dissection labs tired, antiseptic clinging faintly to her hands, eyes still sharp despite the long hours.

Hima—seventeen, restless, hungry—was laying her foundation. One evening at dinner she announced, “I’m taking Business Management. Money, influence, networks. I want to learn how power actually moves.” She rapped her knuckles on the table.

“Outside class I’ll train—combat, martial arts, weapons. If they come for us again, I won’t just hide.”

Abi, hair in a messy ponytail, leaned back and grinned. “Good. I hate hiding. I’ll go tech—not the twelve-hour gamer kind, but useful stuff: cybersecurity, digital forensics, networking. Every enemy leaves a footprint online. I’ll be the one to find it.”

Aya closed her textbook and listened. “If we’re doing this,” she said quietly, “we need balance. Hima, you can learn to fight and lead, but brains and fists aren’t enough.

Abi, you can dig through code, but tech won’t stop a bullet. I’ll heal what’s left after the fight. I’ll finish what Mama started.”

For a beat the three sat in the new silence of the house. Aya’s grief had been steadied into discipline. Hima’s fists curled—restless, hungry. Abi’s smirk softened; her eyes were already calculating.

Their days found shape. Aya’s mornings disappeared into pre-med: dissection labs, late nights memorizing pathways, professors noting her steady authority.

Hima filled afternoons with business lectures—accounting, corporate law, strategy—and evenings at the gym: striking pads, grappling, running until her lungs burned. Weekends were for weapons training—discipline, control, safety.

Abi carved a corner of the digital world for herself: tech workshops, freelance cybersecurity gigs, hackathons under pseudonyms.

Monitors, cables, and sticky notes cluttered her space. “Information is the real battlefield,” she told them one night. “People lie; data doesn’t.”

Every evening they regrouped, either at the dinner table or on the terrace with the city buzzing below.

Aya’s voice was the calm anchor; Hima’s, sharp and commanding; Abi’s, playful until the moment it turned serious.

On the terrace, Aya closed her laptop. “We’re choosing different paths, but one thing doesn’t change: we don’t do this alone.” Hima leaned on the railing, expression hard but loyal. “Agreed. We grow stronger separately, but we strike as one.”

Abi raised a soda in a mock toast. “To the surgeon, the strategist, and the shadow.” Aya smiled faintly.

“No secrets. If one of us changes, we say it.” “Promise,” Hima said, low and absolute.

Abi tapped her can against Aya’s water and Hima’s coffee. “To the future. May it regret underestimating us.”