Royals: Misfits

chapter thirty seven

Leopoldo got out of his seat, squatting in front of me to level his face to mine. "Maging mabait ka kay Mrs. Fajardo, ha? Tutulungan ka niyang mawala yung mga nightmares mo."

"Talaga?" I could hear the hopeful tone in my voice.

"Oo naman. Basta maging honest ka lang sa kanya. Tapos after nito, kakain tayo sa labas nina Leslie. Hihintayin kita."

After what I've been through under my father, Leopoldo was the one who saved me. I am forever thankful he never gave up on looking for us, to bring me back to my family. Since I was very young when I was taken, it took me time to be 'close' with my real, remaning family: my mother, and my sister Allena.

Other than them, I had quite grown close with Leslie, a first cousin from Leopoldo, as she was always the one who's with me when they decided to let me switch schools. I had a rocky start, due to me being an Arguello (despite the different surname), but Leslie has always been my saving grace.

She was the one that told me about the Arguellos, and what it's like being one. A month after my first therapy, I had started my first training, which is mandatory on each member of the family.

This usually starts at the age of 8, where they'll expose you to different ways of defending yourself and attacking your enemy. I started with Karate, and worked my way up to harder ones as I grew older like Ninjutsu and Krav Maga.

I had came late with what happened to me. They we're astonished with how I did every training session however, due to the fact that I learned things quickly than usual, and my body's strong tolerance to pain.

Which always reminded me of this one time where my father had stabbed me, telling me not to cry and endure the pain. He told me to treat the wound on my own. It wasn't a good picture to remember.

Other than training, one must specialize with a skill. Be it in agriculture, arts, engineering, music or technology. You must choose one and start mastering it at a young age. Leslie had chosen business, so she was getting special math classes for her to be good at it. In my case, I had no idea what I'm getting at.

This led some cousins to suggest me things. Amaury Pierre, urged me to try Science, Lowe, Lusenyx and Libretto, Leslie's brothers, urged me to try the field of Arts.

Finally, I saw a spark of interest within me when I discovered that I had a liking with drawing. However, I still wasn't sure about it.

That's when Calixto came, and suggested programming. He told me all the possibilities it could bring to me in the future if I ever start learning about it. The job I could get. The things I could make with it. Blinded by the idea of that purpose, I pursued it.

And up until this day, I do not regret taking it.

However, it didn't have the fun that I had with drawing. Sure, it's still fun to make my computer do things for me, it was always different with drawing. There was still a set of rules for me to tell the computer what to do but with drawing, it was subjective.

But it all comes down to the word, purpose.

"Ayaw mo bang kamustahin yung mga kaibigan mo, Alli?"

The silence of the room was broken when I heard Leslie's voice from behind. I had been leaning in front of the room's window, staring outside, where it is shown how the city is drowning in darkness, stars already decorated in the sky.

I haven't got the voice to reply, thinking about how would they be after what happened. I'm not gonna lie, I do miss them a lot. They gave me a sense of comfort that I longed for when Phoenix and Evan left. But the feeling of guilt was there to remind me how they also endured the torture gamechangers did to them just to protect me and go with the plan that we had.