They materialized in a narrow, rocky ravine and a look at the narrow strip of sky told her that they were probably on the moon of the planet visible above them. Garak immediately moved unerringly towards a crack in the rock face, which when approaching turned out to be an artificially designed passage leading into the mountain. It went steadily slightly downhill and after a bend the passage ended in front of a massive door. Garak opened a hidden keypad in the rock wall next to the door, entered a code, and held his eye in front of an opening sensor. There was a contented humming sound and mechanical noises came from inside the wall and door. Garak knocked on the metal of the door. "A massive duritanium poly alloy, nobody can get through that quickly and no sensory recordings of the interior are possible. The whole mountain is crisscrossed with duritanium ores." He proudly pointed with one hand into the interior released from the door.
After a few meters, the passage widened to a room full of boxes and barrels, from which another passage branched off on both sides.
"Would you like to freshen up or eat something?" Garak pointed to the left aisle. "You'll find well-equipped quarters there." But Jessica shook her head. "Thank you very much Garak, but I'm not a patient person. I finally want to know why I'm here."
"Then please follow me." The tailor disappeared into the passage on the right. They passed two doors that formed a kind of lock, behind it was a room of a few square meters with five motley seatings and a large closet on one side. Another door was embedded on the wall opposite the lock. However, the wall was dominated by a large window to a room that was completely dark.
The whole facility had a look that gave Jessica goosebumps on the back. She was not comfortable. "Let's sit down, please." Garak points to two armchairs and had a bottle of Kanar in his hand as if from nowhere. "Unfortunately I don't have glasses at hand, but I guess you won't be interested in that anymore." Jessica's uneasy feeling intensified, and she urged herself to calm down. But even Garak shifted uneasily on the armchair and seemed unable to find a comfortable position.
"As promised, I will now explain to you why I asked you to accompany me under such nebulous circumstances. I'm delighted you chose to trust me, and now I can only hope that my assumptions and decisions were right." Garak gathered and started. "Since you've told me your story, and I've been exposed fully extent of what has been done to you, including the unacceptable motivations, I've felt a form of collective guilt. It was a member of my people, and this fact pierces my flesh like a sting. I have to do something, I have to give you the opportunity to experience satisfaction. I mean, you haven't had the slightest chance of doing anything other than accepting what you've experienced and somehow living with it." Garak paused for a moment, wondering how to proceed. Jessica was frozen in her armchair, and he didn't want to put too much strain on her either. But there was no turning back. "I understand that there is no reparation for your suffering. But there may be a way to reconcile you with your fate. Revenge." He reached for the control unit on the wall and pressed a button. Light flared behind the window in the adjoining room, revealing a Cardassian. He was bare, hands clasped in iron rings hanging from chains from the ceiling. His face was unrecognizable because he hung his head.
Jessica rose slowly and went to the window. She raised a hand to the cool glass and Garak kept talking. "I found Ekoor for you and brought him here. In the end, it was just as expected. He's made many enemies in his life and his inclinations ... well, you know what I'm talking about. He is unpopular." Garak also got up and stood behind Jessica. "I left him here for you for two days, if I remember correctly, that was the time he interrogated you so." He whispered close to her ear. "In the room there you will find a large selection of useful tools and also a weapon."
Jessica turned her face to Garak, the tips of her noses almost touched. "And what do you think I should do now? Do you think I'll be fine if I torture Ekoor? I don't want to turn into a monster like him." Garak turned Jessica around, touched her cheek with one hand and smiled compassionately at her. "Don't you see it, my dear. He made you a monster long ago. A monster that eats itself up, very slowly. He never stopped torturing you. I only offer you the chance to free yourself from this monster in you. But for that, you have to let it out. Don't bite yourself anymore, bite Ekoor." He stepped back, grabbed the bottle of Kanar and held it out to Jessica. "Take a sip. Consider it. It's up to you. We can go, then he will starve in a few days. You can go in there, point a gun at him, knowing that you are the last one Ekoor will see in his life and pull the trigger. Clean, short and painless. Or you go in there, examine the tools and study the pain on a whole new level." Garak waited and watched. The turmoil in the woman's head was clearly visible on her face.
Again she stepped to the window and watched the exhausted Cardassian. "What are you doing meanwhile, Garak?" Her voice was thin. "Whatever you want, Jessica." He considered his words carefully. "I'll leave you here if you don't want to be watched. Or I wait here as a silent witness. If you wish, I'll go in there with you. Silent, or as a consultant." She turned to him. "What if I ask you to do it for me?" Garak shook his head. "It's your monster that we want to fight here, not mine. My fight is still ahead, but it will look different and will not be called Ekoor."
Garak sat down again and let Jessica decide. She would have to take the first step alone.
"I want to go in there. I want to look him in the eyes, alone." She tightened and went to the door. She hesitated at first, then gave herself a jerk and opened the room. The typical metallic cardassian body odor, intensified by the lack of ventilation, hit her and aroused memories. Jessica swallowed, closed the door behind her, and gave Garak an uncertain look through the window, then stood in front of Crell Ekoor, the man who had raped, beaten, and cut her up. She got goose bumps despite the high room temperature.
In the other room, Garak leaned to the side and operated a small switch. A loudspeaker crackled, then he could hear every sound from the cell.
Jessica reached for Ekoor's head. She wanted to pull him back, but this Cardassian was one of the colossal kind, so all she could do was push his head to the side to look him in the eye. A jerk went through his body and life returned to the limp extremities. Ekoor's eyes opened and fixed Jessica's face. Then he burst out laughing until a coughing spasm interrupted him. Again he looked into Jessica's eyes, he straightened his body, stretched his arms and legs as far as the shackles allowed. Jessica took two steps back and clenched her hands into fists. "Look who we got there? I wondered who I owe this trip to. I didn't think you would survive, Jess." He looked at her body with greedy eyes.
"You remember me?" Jessica tried to get a firm voice, but the reaction of the bound Cardassian made the woman very unsettled.
Ekoor narrowed his eyes and smiled, then licked his lips. "How could I forget you? I have never had so much fun with a woman and none has lasted so long. I remember every minute with you." Complacently, he built himself up in front of her, the scales on his shoulder combs turned dark, the Chu'en shimmered bluish.
"My favorite thing is to remember the moments when your body betrayed you. The moments when you moaned with pleasure and enjoyed it when I fucked you and simultaneously pulled a knife over your white skin. What did you scream then? 'Oh god, yeah!'" He mimicked her voice. Ekoor looked down at himself, then back into Jessica's eyes. He winked grinning. "Do you see how well I remember?" He purred sweetly and bared his teeth. His Ajan bulged slightly, its flaky lips opened slowly and his moist, shiny PrUT came out. "Do you remember it so well? I missed you sometimes. Have you ever had so much fun with a man again?" He laughed derisively. Jessica stood before him as if petrified.
Ekoor's words shuddered over Garak's back, and he was preparing to take Jessica out of the cell should she collapse. The Cardassian prisoner was worse than he imagined, an ice-cold, manipulative sadist. The tailor wasn't sure if the woman could stand up to this wickedness. He saw the tension in Jessica's body, the slight tremor. He hoped that this obvious manipulation would not affect her. Ekoor was good, no question about it, he knew how to manipulate his victims. But he was also arrogant and the all-important question, was Jessica still a victim?
With a jerk, she turned and stood at the small table that was set up in front of the window in the cell. Spread out there was a selection of blades, hooks, tongs and skewers, some labeled injections and liquids with different pH values.
The collection of torture tools specially put together by Garak was chosen so that it remained exceedingly effective even without effort.
"Jess, Jess come here to me. Let's talk about old times. Jess."
Jessica clutched the edge of the table to hold herself up, and Garak reached for the doorknob. But after a few moments with trembling hands, Ekoor's laughter as constant accompaniment, she raised her head and left the room. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it. The laughter now came from the speakers.
"You were listening?" Her voice was tired. Garak nodded, trying to keep his mine neutral. Jessica had written on her face that she hadn't intended to ever share this secret with anyone. She had hidden this fact so deeply from herself that Ekoor's words shook the woman deeply.
She let herself slip down the door and hid her face in her hands.
"Yes, I heard everything. And I'm glad I heard it. Everything makes so much more sense now." Jessica looked up in panic. "My dear, if I hadn't heard it, you could continue to lie to yourself. You could keep blaming yourself and hurting yourself again and again as a punishment for surviving."
"But he's right, at some point I gave up, allowed myself to enjoy it, didn't fight back, even played his games." She banged her fist on the door. "If he hadn't exaggerated at some point and almost killed me, maybe I would have even fallen in love with him."
"You survived! Finally, stop feeling guilty of something someone else has done to you. He was good at manipulating you, accept that. But now it's in your hand, he has no power over you if you don't allow it. Get back control of what he took from you."
Jessica had tears in her eyes when she looked up at Garak. "You don't understand Garak, I didn't hurt myself to punish myself." Despair twisted her flushed face. "I did that because I yearn for him." She swallowed hard and shook her head resignedly. "I don't want to kill Ekoor, I want to go in there," she pointed with her hand in the direction of the window, "free him and go with him, even risking not to survive this decision for long."
Garak was speechless; the feeling of helplessness had frozen him. How could he have made such a misjudgment of the situation? He should have realized that Jessica was not completely sincere about her 'confession' in his quarters, even if she hadn't deliberately lied. His ability to spot a lie had been taken worrying damage, since he was exiled to DS9.
Completely horrified by the extent of the manipulation that still affected Jessica, he looked for a way out of this situation.
"I arranged this for you, my dear. It's up to you, even if you want to let him go." He knelt in front of Jessica and put a hand on her trembling shoulder. "However, I would like you to consider that what you currently look upon to be your most intimate wish is a product of Ekoor's most perfidious influence. I'm sure he wanted to do just that. Every pain and every tenderness, everything that he gave to and took from you was calculated precisely to cause a form of dependency in you. What you feel now is not real." Garak rose. What could he do now other than take matters into his hands? Kanar seemed like a good decision.
"Jess! Jessica! My arms are getting tired, and I would like to eat something. Can we end this game now?" The speaker falls silent again.
Jessica sat on the floor in front of the door, deep in thought, for a long time. There was no indication that Garak's words had made a difference in her.
During a felt eternity, the only sound was Jessica's restless breathing and now and then a chain clatter or an annoying, long-drawn-out "Jess." from the cell, in which the woman flinched every time. The tailor just sat there silently. He didn't want to distract the woman and did what he could do like no other, he became invisible.
Garak startled when Jessica finally got up. He couldn't tell how much time had passed, but the numb feeling in his buttocks made him appreciate several hours.
She moistened her chapped lips before speaking. "I don't know what happens if I go in there now, Garak, but" she reconsidered her decision, "I don't want you to intervene. Do you promise me that?"
He cocked his head to the side and looked at Jessica, trying to see what plan she had made. "You still seem undecided, my dear. I'm not certain if I can just leave you to your fate."
She went up to him, crouched in front of his armchair and took his hand. "Garak, I'm undecided. And I have no idea if I still have my will when I go in there. But it became clear to me that I don't want to continue as I have done so far. However, this ends today, everything is better than the current conditions. So, again, please promise me not to interfere?" She looked him straight in the eye.
Garak nodded. "Very well, I promise" He squeezed her hand.
Jessica got up, then went over to the door without hesitation and entered the cell. Garak's hands clasped the armrests.