His Private Hell - Chapter 137: Chapter 137

⸻
The Fire We Chose
Smoke coiled through the wreckage like a serpent, hungry and unrelenting. The once-mighty towers of Ally’s Inc now stood in fractured steel and shattered glass, a monument to the war that had been born in shadows and ended in flame. Beneath the carnage, among the buckled floors and molten concrete, she stood—barefoot, blood-slicked, reborn.
Eella Hart had become the inferno.
The serum still burned in her veins, reshaping her with every breath. Her body was no longer hers—it was a weapon, forged from betrayal and vengeance. Her heartbeat wasn’t a pulse. It was a war drum.
Behind her, the vault had collapsed into itself. Darcie’s body lay somewhere beneath the rubble—bones shattered, teeth bared in death’s final curse. James was gone. Astrid’s scream still echoed down the ruined stairwells, fractured and broken, the last trace of a sister who had traded her soul for silence.
And Garrison?
He knelt.
Not from weakness. Not in worship.
But in surrender.
His palms bled from crawling through fire to reach her. His shirt was torn open, exposing the deep gash that bled over his heart—a wound Darcie had given him, but only Eella could keep open.
“You can kill me now,” he rasped, head bowed. “If that’s what you’ve become.”
She didn’t speak. Not yet.
The heat warped the air around her. Alarms blared. Below them, factions tore each other to pieces—Lazarus’s soldiers against the defectors, Choir loyalists versus mercenaries who had turned for the highest bid. The city burned from the inside out, and Eella was its center.
“No more Choir,” she said, voice low. “No more kings.”
Garrison lifted his eyes. “What are you now?”
Her mouth twisted. “The consequence.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. Too late. The police wouldn’t make it. No one would. This wasn’t a rescue.
It was reckoning.
She turned from him.
Walked toward the edge of the broken window frame—twenty-five stories above the streets soaked in blood and rebellion. The city pulsed beneath her feet, a war zone swallowing itself whole.
Behind her, Garrison stood.
“You’re going after Lazarus,” he said.
Her silence was answer enough.
He followed.
They descended through hell. Every floor was a tomb—bodies of soldiers, employees, old enemies. Names she once filed under PR scandals were now lifeless at her feet. She didn’t cry. Didn’t stop.
Garrison limped beside her. He hadn’t spoken since the roof. Not since kneeling.
Finally, on Floor Nine, the last defenses collapsed.
Lazarus waited.
Alone.
Bloodied.
Smiling.
His silver suit was scorched, one sleeve torn away to reveal circuitry etched into flesh—his enhancements failing. Sparks danced over his skin. His eyes glowed with madness.
“I always knew you’d be the end,” he said, stepping from the smoke. “You, not Garrison. Not Darcie. You, the mistake I let walk in through the front door.”
Eella didn’t flinch.
“You called me a tool,” she said. “Now watch me break.”
He lunged.
But she was faster.
Their collision cracked the marble floor. They moved like lightning and thunder—his rage sharpened by tech, hers by purpose. His punches shook walls. Hers shattered ribs. He tried to choke her. She broke his wrist.
Still, he laughed.
“You’ll be worse than me,” he gasped, even as she crushed him against the pillar. “You think you’re the hero? You’re a virus.”
“No,” she whispered, gripping his throat. “I’m the cure.”
And she ripped him apart.
No final speech. No last plea.
Just blood. Bone. Silence.
It was over.
The war. The games. The hell she’d been dragged into, seduced by, destroyed in.
Over.
But she didn’t collapse.
Not yet.
Garrison stood in the doorway. Watching. Waiting.
Eella turned to him, her hands still red, her pulse still burning like a war anthem.
“What now?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes searched him—this man she hated, wanted, survived.
“We bury the dead,” she said. “And then we burn what’s left.”
⸻
Three Days Later
The city was quiet.
A hush had fallen in the absence of the Choir. Ally’s Inc was gone. The tower a scar on the skyline. News outlets whispered of terrorism. Rogue experiments. A cover story no one would believe, and everyone would accept.
No one knew the truth.
Except the ones who survived it.
Eella sat on the rooftop of a smaller building now—one of the old safehouses James had marked. A cigarette trembled between her fingers. Unlit.
She wasn’t sure why she still held onto it.
Maybe a reminder.
The door creaked behind her.
Garrison.
He didn’t speak. Just sat beside her.
His face was covered in bruises. His hands bandaged. But the storm in his eyes had settled.
For now.
“You’re not going to run,” she said, not a question.
“I did enough of that,” he answered.
Silence.
Then—
“Darcie loved you,” Eella whispered. “In her own fucked-up way.”
He didn’t deny it. “And I failed her.”
“She made her choice.”
“And you made yours,” he said softly. “The serum. Lazarus. All of it.”
Eella looked down at her hands. Still trembling. Not from fear. From aftermath.
“I didn’t survive it,” she said. “I became it.”
He reached out. Fingers brushing hers.
“And now what?”
She looked out over the city.
“Now we make the fire worth it.”
⸻
Six Months Later
There was no happy ending.
No white wedding.
No fairy tale.
But there was vengeance. And freedom.
Garrison sold what was left of Ally’s Inc. Donated half. Burned the rest. He disappeared from headlines.
Eella used what remained of the tech. She hunted.
Not for fame. Not for redemption.
For the ones still in the shadows.
The ones who whispered about building a second Choir.
She found them.
Every time.
And she burned them out.
Garrison followed her. Not as a protector. Not even as a lover.
But as a witness.
The man who started the fire.
The woman who became it.
Their story didn’t end in a kiss.
It ended in ash.
And from it—
She rose.
⸻
THE END.