His Private Hell - Chapter 12: Chapter 12

The rain hit the canopy in sheets.
Singapore’s jungle wrapped around the compound like a coiled beast, thick with heat, secrets, and blood in the soil. Eella crouched in the dense underbrush, her dark suit slick from humidity, her eyes locked on the entrance to the research facility.
Ollie was ten feet to her right, fingers dancing over a detonator.
Ronnie was just behind, armed and silent.
Astrid stayed behind in the extraction van.
And Garrison?
He had arrived two hours ago.
She hadn’t asked how. She didn’t care.
She just knew when his body pressed to hers in that pitch-black alley outside the airstrip, his mouth found hers like a curse and a prayer wrapped into one.
“I told you I was coming,” he growled against her lips.
“I told you not to.”
“You never meant it.”
She hadn’t.
And now they were back in it. Not lovers. Not enemies. Something more dangerous than both.
He crouched beside her now, his mouth at her ear. “Two guards. Northwest. One camera. We time it with Ollie’s cut.”
She nodded once. Their old rhythm reemerging like instinct.
At precisely 0300, the power grid flickered. A heartbeat later, the camera loop began. And two muffled shots signaled the guards’ fall.
They were in.
The compound hadn’t changed. Sleek corridors. Blue-tinged glass. Hidden pain.
Eella moved fast, sweeping corridors, finding the vault on the lower level. Ronnie hacked the keypad. Inside: Vincent’s safe, thick steel, old-school lock.
Garrison pulled a torch from his pack. “This’ll take five minutes.”
They didn’t have five.
Footsteps echoed.
Then a voice. Darcie’s.
“Thought I smelled guilt.”
Eella turned slowly.
Darcie stood in the corridor, weapon raised, red lipstick like a wound.
“You always did have timing,” Eella said coolly.
“And you always thought you were the smartest bitch in the room.”
“I usually am.”
Darcie smiled coldly. “Not tonight.”
Garrison moved to block Eella. Darcie’s gaze shifted to him.
“Ah. The hero dog. Tell me, do you pant louder when she pulls your leash?”
He didn’t flinch. “Put the gun down.”
“No.”
Darcie fired.
Garrison dove, pulling Eella down. The bullet whizzed past them, cracking the wall behind.
Ronnie returned fire, forcing Darcie back.
Eella jumped to her feet. “Secure the safe!”
She chased Darcie down the corridor.
They collided outside the cryo chamber, knocking into the glass. Eella slammed Darcie into the wall, gun raised.
“You should’ve stayed buried,” Eella hissed.
Darcie bared her teeth. “You should’ve stayed human.”
And then she pressed something to her neck.
Eella froze.
Darcie’s pupils dilated. Her veins lit under her skin like silver.
“What the hell—”
Darcie laughed, and then lunged, faster than she should’ve been. Eella fought back, ducking under a swing, delivering a vicious elbow to the jaw.
Darcie didn’t flinch.
She caught Eella by the throat, slamming her into the wall.
“Let me tell you what my father perfected,” Darcie whispered, tightening her grip. “Pain suppression. Strength enhancement. You think you’re a weapon, Vance? I’m a new species.”
Eella kicked hard, twisting. Her boot connected with Darcie’s knee. The woman staggered.
And Garrison was there.
He tackled Darcie, pinning her with brutal precision. “Move!”
Eella didn’t hesitate. She sprinted back toward the vault.
Ronnie had cracked it.
Inside: a binder. Thick. Old. Sealed in plastic.
She yanked it free.
An alarm began to blare.
“We need out!” Ollie’s voice crackled over the comms. “They’re locking down the south wing!”
Garrison dragged a groggy Darcie behind him, cuffed and sedated.
Eella took point, binder in hand, adrenaline screaming.
They emerged into the jungle fifteen minutes later. Helicopter blades roared overhead.
Ronnie shouted into his radio. “Go! Go! Go!”
The chopper lifted seconds before guards swarmed the clearing.
Eella looked down at Darcie, unconscious and strapped to the bench.
And she didn’t feel triumph.
She felt war still breathing down her neck.
⸻
Three hours later, back in a safehouse overlooking the coast, the truth spilled open.
The binder contained donor names, encrypted communication logs, detailed blueprints.
And contracts.
Military-grade biotech signed off by names she knew too well.
Senators. Tech billionaires. Doctors.
Monsters with diplomas.
“They were going to sell soldiers to private armies,” Ronnie said, hands shaking. “Conditioned assassins.”
Eella nodded. “And Vincent Deveraux was the broker.”
“Where is he now?” Garrison asked.
Ollie shrugged. “Vanished. Again.”
Eella stood. “Then we find him.”
Ronnie glanced toward the back room. “And Darcie?”
Eella’s voice was ice. “We find out what he did to her. And we undo it.”
⸻
But that night, when silence fell like ash, Eella sat alone on the rooftop.
Garrison joined her without a word.
She didn’t look at him.
“He made her into something not quite human,” she said.
“She chose it,” Garrison replied. “Don’t give her too much mercy.”
Eella turned to him. “And what did I choose, Garrison?”
He met her gaze. “You chose to burn.”
She nodded once. “Then I’ll finish the fire.”
He stepped closer. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
Her breath hitched. “Don’t offer me things you can’t keep.”
“I’m not.”
“I can’t survive you,” she whispered.
Garrison took her hand.
“You already did.”
Then he kissed her.
And she let herself burn all over again.