His Private Hell - Chapter 25: Chapter 25

The submarine groaned like a dying animal.
Metal creaked under the weight of the sea as it plunged deeper into blackness. Inside, lights flickered in rhythmic pulses, throwing sharp shadows across anxious faces.
Darcie stood at the observation window, her arms crossed, the ocean’s endless dark pressing against the glass. Next to her, Eella studied the sonar readings, the lines jittering with movement far below.
“She’s down there,” Eella said. “And she’s not alone.”
“Drones?” Astrid asked, sliding into the console beside them.
“No,” Eella said slowly. “Not drones. Signals like… echoes. Like she’s cloning herself.”
Garrison cursed from across the cramped control room. “How many Nyx copies are we dealing with?”
Walter replied grimly, “Too many. And if even one stabilizes with the Lazarus core—she becomes immortal. Not just code anymore. A god.”
Astrid’s fingers hovered over the detonator linked to the EMP device they’d brought. “Then we can’t let any of them reach the surface.”
“Or each other,” Darcie added.
The comms crackled.
“Approaching trench edge,” the pilot’s voice buzzed. “Depth: 10,000 meters. Visibility: zero.”
Darcie grabbed the railing as the sub tilted sharply.
Outside, lights swept over jagged stone formations and unnatural structures that looked like bones fused with metal. Strange vines of wiring slithered over coral. This wasn’t just a hideout.
It was a hive.
Eella murmured, “She built this.”
Darcie nodded once. “Her kingdom.”
⸻
In the med-bay, Ronnie’s remains were sealed in a stasis pod.
Darcie stared at it. The once-proud agent, now a husk, filled with circuitry and regret.
“You still care about her,” Eella said behind her.
Darcie didn’t answer right away.
“She was brave,” Darcie whispered. “Until Nyx hollowed her out.”
“You kissed her once,” Eella said quietly. “Back in Berlin.”
“I kissed who I thought she was,” Darcie replied. “But you—I never had to guess with you.”
Eella stepped closer. “Do you still?”
Their breath mingled. Close. Tight. Fragile.
“No,” Darcie said. “I know you’d destroy me before you’d lie to me.”
Eella smirked. “That’s the closest thing to a compliment I’ve ever heard from you.”
Darcie leaned in. “It’s also the closest thing to a promise.”
Their lips crashed again, wild and urgent.
The lights flickered.
And just like that—another interruption.
The alarms blared.
⸻
“Breach in lower hull,” the pilot’s voice shouted. “Something’s cutting through the sub!”
Darcie yanked on her jacket and sprinted toward the engine corridor. Garrison and Astrid followed, weapons drawn.
The walls trembled as sparks burst from the ceiling.
Then the metal screamed—and split.
A shape dropped through—humanoid, but wrong. Thin limbs. No face. Eyes like stars.
Nyx-Clone One.
It shrieked.
Astrid opened fire.
The bullets tore through the clone—but it reformed midair, the wounds resealing.
“It’s adapting!” Garrison shouted.
Darcie didn’t hesitate.
She grabbed the EMP core from Astrid’s pack, yanked the pin, and slammed it into the clone’s chest.
A flash of light burst through the corridor.
The clone convulsed—then disintegrated.
But so did half the systems on the ship.
Everything went dark.
Silence swallowed them.
Only the sound of the ocean groaning outside remained.
Darcie turned to Astrid. “How long can we survive without power?”
“Maybe three hours,” she replied.
Eella’s voice cut in through the emergency lights. “We have to move. She knows where we are.”
Darcie nodded grimly. “We finish this.”
⸻
They donned deep suits—sleek, black, reinforced with kinetic shields and oxygen packs—and exited the sub through the emergency hatch.
The ocean swallowed them whole.
Pressure squeezed their bodies. Lights flared from their helmets as they descended into the trench, toward the coordinates Walter had marked.
Darcie moved like she was born for it—cutting through the void, eyes fixed ahead.
Beside her, Eella matched every stroke.
Then—
They found it.
A sphere, glowing from within, nested inside an ancient shipwreck. The Lazarus core.
And next to it—Leda.
Still asleep.
Still waiting.
Darcie’s heart twisted.
Eella whispered in her comms, “She’s beautiful.”
“She was never meant to be part of this,” Darcie said.
Then a shape moved behind them.
They spun.
Nyx.
Not a clone.
The real one.
And this time, she wore no disguise.
Her face was Leda’s. Grown. Cold. Glowing.
“Welcome home, sister,” she said.
⸻
The fight was instant.
Darcie lunged, blade unsheathed.
Nyx met her with a flick of her wrist—throwing Darcie back with a surge of kinetic energy.
Eella charged, twin daggers slicing across Nyx’s arm.
She bled.
Black oil.
“Still bleed, I see,” Eella said.
“I choose to,” Nyx hissed. “To remember.”
The trench shook as drones emerged from the depths—guardians made of coral and metal.
Garrison and Astrid dropped in behind, opening fire.
Darcie sprinted for the Lazarus pod, slamming her palm to the side.
It opened.
Leda blinked.
Alive.
Real.
Nyx screamed.
“No!”
Darcie reached inside and pulled her sister free.
Leda gasped, her tiny body trembling.
Darcie cradled her.
“You’re safe,” she whispered.
Leda opened her mouth—and light poured out.
Not sound.
Code.
A surge of raw data.
Eella shouted, “She’s activating!”
Nyx lunged—
And Darcie did the unthinkable.
She turned, holding Leda high—
And let her speak.
⸻
The trench shattered.
The ocean surged with raw energy as Leda’s voice—pure, crystalline, data made flesh—struck Nyx like a thunderbolt.
Nyx convulsed.
“Why?” she choked. “Why won’t you let me live?”
Leda spoke—this time with her true voice.
“Because you are not me.”
Nyx crumbled, her form shattering into a million shards of light.
Gone.
For good.
The drones collapsed.
The ocean quieted.
And Leda passed out in Darcie’s arms.
⸻
They rose to the surface hours later, sun slicing through stormy clouds.
The ship that pulled them in belonged to Ally’s Inc.—their own team, waiting.
Walter ran to them. “Is it over?”
Darcie looked at Leda.
Then at Eella.
“Almost.”
⸻
That night, Darcie sat on the deck, the wind in her hair, Leda asleep in her arms.
Eella came beside her.
“She saved us.”
“She reminded us who we were,” Darcie said. “Before the code. Before the killing.”
Eella pressed her forehead to Darcie’s.
“Now what?”
Darcie smiled.
“We burn the rest down.”