His Private Hell - Chapter 129: Chapter 129

The vault was gone.
Reduced to flame, steel torn open like flesh, the corridors melted behind them as if the building itself rejected everything that had just been born inside it. Eella’s body moved like a weapon now—no hesitation, no fear, no memory of mercy. The serum hadn’t taken her. It had amplified her. Turned every emotion into an execution order.
And Garrison?
He limped behind her, blood painting his every step, half-alive from the wound Darcie left in his shoulder. But he followed her. Even now. Even when her skin glowed faintly under the flickering lights, when her breath came in pulses like static.
He followed her like a man crawling into the fire, knowing he’d never come back out whole.
The hall shook.
“Left,” she said, her voice a thunderclap.
Garrison didn’t argue. He turned.
They passed bodies. Choir agents slumped like broken puppets, their neural frequencies overpowered by the raw scream now living inside her bloodstream. The building’s AI systems shorted as she neared them. Panels sparked. Screens cracked.
And somewhere beneath the floor—the low, seismic hum of Lazarus.
He knew she was coming.
“I want to see his face,” she whispered, stopping outside the black corridor. “When he sees the thing he tried to make—turned against him.”
Garrison’s breath rattled. “You still feel human?”
She looked over her shoulder.
“No.”
And she opened the door.
Inside—the war.
Bullets sang through the dark. Red strobes flared. What remained of the resistance unit—those who hadn’t turned, those who still believed in the fall of the Choir—were locked in battle with Lazarus’s final echelon. No masks now. No ceremony. Just men and women with guns and orders to shoot everything that moved.
Eella didn’t flinch.
She walked through the battlefield like a myth, eyes glowing red in the smoke. Gunfire slowed. Some agents turned. Hesitated.
One opened fire.
The bullet curved midair—veered—slammed back into his own skull. He dropped like a sack of blood.
Garrison reached for his gun but stopped. She didn’t need cover. She was the threat.
She stepped through the blaze, the last of her humanity peeling like ash.
At the back of the chamber—ten-foot-high doors, sealed with voiceprint and bone scan. Lazarus’s stronghold.
Garrison stumbled up beside her.
“You’re not breaking through that,” he said.
She didn’t blink.
“I’m not breaking through it,” she agreed.
She lifted her hand—and touched the metal.
It screamed.
The biometric locks convulsed, sparked, and melted. The walls around the chamber pulsed like arteries as her bloodline rewrote the security system’s core code. The door didn’t just open.
It begged to be opened.
Inside—no guards. No agents. No backup.
Just Lazarus.
His face was as smooth as it had ever been. No scars. No age. But his eyes—those weren’t eyes. They were something bred in war. Something that had never truly seen love.
He smiled when she stepped in.
“You survived,” he said, like it amused him.
She didn’t speak.
He looked past her. “And you brought the dog.”
Garrison raised his weapon. “You think I’ll let you breathe after what you’ve done?”
Lazarus’s voice remained calm. “You always do. Even now, your hand shakes. You still want to believe this can end without fire.”
He turned back to Eella.
“But she’s different now. Aren’t you?”
She didn’t answer.
Lazarus stepped forward.
“I gave you a gift.”
“You tried to destroy me.”
“I tried to rebuild you,” he corrected. “You were born broken. I simply finished the job.”
Her hand twitched.
Lazarus’s smile widened. “You feel it, don’t you? The hunger. The way the serum chews at your soul. The way it whispers that you are better than them. You want to kill me.”
“I’m going to.”
“But not because I hurt you,” he said. “Because you liked it. Because now, you understand. Pain is the only thing real enough to worship.”
“Wrong,” she said softly.
Then she moved.
No signal. No wind-up. Just sudden, explosive violence.
She launched at him, and the room ruptured. They collided like titans, glass and steel and blood flying in every direction. He blocked her first strike. The second shattered his arm. He retaliated—hard—but her body didn’t respond like it used to. It adapted. Bent around the pain. Swallowed it.
She slammed him through a marble pillar.
Garrison flinched.
The ceiling cracked as Lazarus pulled himself free, coughing blood.
“You don’t understand what I put in you—”
“I understand enough.”
And she drove a fist into his chest.
He screamed.
But it wasn’t a death cry—it was laughter.
“You think it’s over?” he spat. “You think killing me will end the Choir? It’s in you now. Forever. You didn’t beat it. You became it.”
And then—
A sound from behind.
The scrape of boots.
Darcie.
She limped through the ruins, a knife in her hand, her arm dripping red.
“I told you,” she hissed. “You don’t get the final note without me.”
Garrison’s heart stopped.
Eella turned.
“Darcie, don’t—”
“You injected yourself. You burned down my chance at salvation. Now I burn everything.”
She lunged.
Garrison fired.
But not fast enough.
Darcie slammed into Eella, blade aimed at her throat.
Eella caught it—barehanded.
The blade melted in her grip.
Darcie’s eyes widened.
“No—”
Eella’s other hand rose.
And with one blow—one—she broke Darcie.
The woman collapsed, spine twisted, knife clattering to the floor.
Not dead.
Not yet.
Just enough to feel it.
Garrison moved to her side, breath raw, eyes wide.
“She’s still breathing,” he rasped.
“She won’t be for long,” Eella said.
But Garrison touched her arm.
“Don’t.”
She didn’t look at him.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t kill her like this. Not when she’s broken. Not when it makes you no better than Lazarus.”
She turned slowly.
And for a moment—just a flicker—there was fear in Garrison’s eyes.
“You think I care about being better?” she asked.
“I think you care about me.”
Silence.
Behind them, Lazarus coughed blood, dragging himself toward a console.
Garrison noticed. “He’s trying to trigger the final surge.”
Eella didn’t even look.
She threw Darcie aside—then crossed the room in a blink.
Lazarus reached for the panel.
Eella grabbed his throat.
He smiled.
“Go ahead.”
And she did.
She crushed his throat—slowly—until every memory of his voice turned to silence.
When she dropped him, there was nothing left to fight.
Only fire.
Only ash.
Only her.
She stood in the wreckage.
Darcie sobbing. Garrison bleeding.
And her—untouched.
The afterburn of vengeance left her hollow.
“What now?” she asked, without turning.
Garrison stepped forward, eyes haunted.
“We survive.”
She looked at him.
“Do I look like someone who deserves to?”
He didn’t answer.
Because they both knew the truth.
She had burned everything.
And there was no salvation in flame.
Only control.
And the terrifying knowledge that now, the devil didn’t wear a crown.
She wore her face.