His Private Hell - Chapter 26: Chapter 26

Ally’s Inc. Headquarters, Venice.
The rain came sideways as the black SUV pulled into the underground facility, security drones scanning its perimeter with lethal intent.
Darcie stepped out first, her boots echoing on the concrete. Behind her, Eella carried Leda wrapped in a thermal blanket. Garrison, Astrid, and Walter trailed behind, their expressions hollowed by exhaustion and suspicion.
The mission had ended, but the questions hadn’t.
Inside the compound, the air was dry and humming with artificial calm. Too calm.
“Welcome back,” said a soft voice over the intercom. Female. Robotic.
Darcie glanced at the ceiling. “Didn’t know we upgraded to creepy AI receptionists.”
“New protocols,” Walter muttered. “Since the Vienna breach.”
Darcie paused. “That was six months ago.”
Walter didn’t respond.
A line of armed guards awaited them down the hall—not in welcome, but in assessment.
Garrison tensed. “Are we under review?”
“We just saved the f***ing world,” Astrid growled.
“And that’s exactly why they’re scared of us,” Eella said coldly.
They were led to the debriefing chamber—glass walls, a single table, and a bank of surveillance feeds showing Nyx’s hive imploding beneath the sea.
Darcie looked up.
A camera blinked.
She gave it the middle finger.
⸻
The new director of Ally’s Inc. entered the chamber ten minutes later.
She was tall, dark-skinned, with silver-streaked braids and a serpentine grace that didn’t belong to politicians or soldiers.
“Valora Rane,” she said, offering a hand that no one shook.
“I’m replacing Director Holt,” she continued. “He died yesterday. Unrelated stroke. Tragic.”
Walter flinched.
Darcie stepped forward. “You’re lying.”
Valora raised an eyebrow. “And you’re leaking classified data from your spinal link. Want to compare sins?”
Eella narrowed her eyes. “What do you want?”
Valora turned to the glass and tapped a sequence into the interface.
The feeds shifted.
Not the ocean trench anymore.
But Leda.
Sleeping.
Tethered to a series of machines neither Walter nor Garrison recognized.
“She’s not stable,” Valora said. “But she’s more than just human. We ran a preliminary scan—her cells are replicating in fractal algorithms.”
“That’s not biology,” Astrid said.
“No,” Valora replied. “It’s the future.”
Darcie bristled. “You’re going to experiment on her.”
“We’re going to protect her. From people like you.”
Eella took a step forward. “Try it. I dare you.”
Valora didn’t blink.
“You think you ended it with Nyx,” she said softly. “But Nyx was only one vessel. The Lazarus code… it was meant to birth a network. Across continents. A hive of sentient carriers.”
Darcie’s stomach dropped.
“You’re saying she succeeded?”
Valora turned.
“I’m saying she wasn’t the first. And she won’t be the last.”
⸻
That night, Darcie sat alone in the old observatory dome atop the Venetian compound.
The sky blinked with static stars.
Eella entered without knocking, two glasses of brandy in her hands.
Darcie took one. “I needed this.”
Eella sat beside her, thigh pressing against hers. “She’s not safe here.”
Darcie nodded. “I know.”
“We could disappear.”
Darcie looked at her. “With Leda? They’d hunt us until the stars died.”
“Let them,” Eella said. “We’ve outrun worse.”
Darcie met her eyes.
And kissed her.
No hesitance this time.
It was heat and history and survival and surrender. Hands gripped thighs. Jackets slid from shoulders. Tongues tangled.
Eella growled against her mouth. “You’re still the most dangerous thing I’ve ever wanted.”
“And you’re still the only one who didn’t flinch when I bled,” Darcie whispered.
Clothes dropped. Skin met skin.
And in the silence between storms, they let themselves be human again.
⸻
The next morning, alarms ripped through the compound.
Darcie and Eella bolted upright.
The feed in the observatory blinked.
Leda’s chamber—empty.
Darcie swore and ran.
By the time they reached the core lab, Valora stood with her arms crossed, surrounded by security.
“No breach,” she said. “But the Lazarus readings are spiking. It’s like she’s calling something.”
Garrison arrived, panting. “There’s a vessel in orbit. Low atmosphere. Cloaked.”
Astrid cursed. “It’s not one of ours.”
Darcie’s eyes narrowed. “Nyx didn’t just plan for the ocean. She had uplink capability. Satellite clones.”
Walter’s face drained. “She seeded herself in orbit.”
Valora’s hands trembled. “We have no defense for that.”
“Then we make one,” Darcie said.
She stepped past the guards, grabbed a pulse rifle from the armory wall, and turned to Eella.
“We’re going to need a f***ing rocket.”
⸻
Eella stole the plans from Valora’s encrypted server in eight minutes flat.
By the tenth minute, Darcie was inside the orbital flight capsule—cold steel, oxygen tanks, and barely regulated flame.
“You really want to board a Nyx hive satellite?” Astrid asked, incredulous.
“No,” Darcie said, strapping in. “I need to.”
“Because of her?” Garrison asked, nodding toward where Leda floated in containment.
“Because of all of us,” Darcie replied.
Eella leaned down and kissed her, rough and final.
“If you die up there,” she whispered, “I’ll kill you.”
Darcie grinned. “If I die, I want it to be with your name on my tongue.”
And then—
Launch.
The Earth fell away.
The black swallowed her whole.
⸻
The satellite loomed like a god’s eye—open and watching.
Darcie docked on the third spin, pulling herself into a vacuum tube and breaching the hatch.
Inside was silence.
Then—
Her own voice.
Playing on a loop.
“Welcome, Darcie.”
She moved forward, boots clanging on metal.
The walls pulsed with organic circuitry—living code.
And at the center—
Nyx.
Not a body this time.
A consciousness.
Projected in mirrors. Reflected in flickers of her own face.
“You came,” the voice said.
Darcie raised her rifle. “I came to end it.”
“No,” Nyx said. “You came to become it.”
The rifle clicked.
But didn’t fire.
Darcie stared.
Her hand trembled.
Her heartbeat synced with the pulse of the ship.
The Lazarus core had activated.
And part of her—wanted it.
“Don’t,” Eella’s voice whispered in her comms.
“Remember who you are.”
Darcie lowered the weapon.
“No,” she said.
“I remember who I was before you.”
And she ripped the core from the interface.
The satellite screamed.
But so did Darcie.
The pain split her open—
And then everything went white.
⸻
When she woke, she was floating.
Back on Earth.
Inside a med bay.
Eella above her, pale and furious.
“You almost died,” she said.
“I always do,” Darcie rasped.
“And yet, you keep coming back.”
Darcie reached up, fingers tangling in Eella’s shirt.
“Maybe I keep coming back for you.”
Eella kissed her hard, hands fierce, heart wilder.
Outside the window, Leda watched the sunrise.
And somewhere above them—
The stars whispered secrets only Darcie now understood.