WARNING: Tough chapter. Mentions of past rape.
Ferrix City was a working-class, motley metropolis in the middle of a wasteland. Not a place for luxuries, large fortunes, or fortunes at all, but a place where people earned a living extremely modestly and where almost all business revolved around the scrap and second-hand trade. There was no glamour anywhere, no glittering surfaces, no Imperial straight lines or cold colours, no vertiginous heights. It gave off a chaotic air, with its quite anarchic streets and passageways.
Jyn instantly liked it. Ferrix looked the furthest from the Imperial influence that a planet could look, and seemed proud of it. So far, the places with more or less Imperial presence had proven the harshest and merciless of all to her. It was in one of them where she'd had to lose her virginity to a total stranger in exchange for a handful of credits when she had just been abandoned by Saw and the cadre, and in another one of those Imperial planets, Coruscant no less (where she had decided to return to in order to try her luck, she'd been out of work for long enough and desperate for credits) several weeks previous, where a gang of teenagers thirsty for non-consensual sex, power and blood, whose appearance cried riches, decadence and depravity had raped her in an alley, stolen her credits and weapons and left her lying in a puddle of mud. She had been tricked by the leader of the gang in a bar. She'd gone there to see if she could be employed as a waitress, but she was turned down. A young patron was alone in the establishment, having a drink on the counter, and started a civil enough conversation with her, making her believe that he wanted to hire her services if she was available for night company. She accepted because she'd run out of options and then, when they were on the streets and to her horror, he trapped her in a chokehold before she could even blink and called for the rest of his cronies via commlink, who were hidden nearby. They were five in total. They dragged her to the nearest alley and took turns with her while the rest kept her pinned down. They mocked her attempts at counterattack. She succeeded in kicking and punching a couple of them, but they punched and kicked her back in retaliation, leaving her out of breath and with nasty bruises on her stomach, sides and back. She barely registered the subsequent repeated violation of her body, in a state of almost unconsciousness, and surely that was for the best, because her brain protected her from the worst by nearly blocking her senses and perception. After the ordeal was finished and the rapists had fled the dark alley laughing and congratulating themselves for their monstrous feat, she had considered letting herself be carried away by the sweet call of death, for a handful of minutes she truly had, bruised, bleedy, broken, aching atrociously and feeling so weak, so dirty, so worthless. But her stubborn resolve had come back and she stood up once again, after one more blow, feeling her willpower hard like stone in her weakened flesh. She gritted her teeth, lifted her chin, endured the pain on and in her beaten body and walked away with difficulty, swaying. A pharmacist who found her staring longingly through the pharmacy's window, more dead than alive, allowed her to wash herself in the refresher, treated her with bacta and gave her antibiotics and painkillers, applied a contraceptive injection (Jyn had an implant, but she didn't object the extra protection), all for free, and sent her away with a bag containing bacta gel, medicines, food and some credits, all enough to last for two or three days, four if she rationed it well, Jyn calculated. The pharmacist also gave Jyn a small box cutter to hide inside her coat. And she did all of that in silence and without asking a single question, having assessed the truth of what had happened to her at a glance. Jyn hadn't even had enough strength left to properly express her gratitude to the quiet and compassionate middle-aged woman, a rare specimen in a ruthless Imperial city. Jyn wondered if the woman was a covert rebel, in her own way. She probably was. Very few people in that damned city would have given a shit about a nobody like Jyn.
The pharmacist's assistance when Jyn found herself in her lowest moments since her parents had been taken from her ten years before was what definitely dragged her out of her misery and instilled in her the determination to go on.
"Where do you prefer to look for a job? I know of a couple of cafés where the managers are in need for a server, and a repair shop whose owner is a stubborn old hag too proud to admit that she needs an extra hand, but I've no doubt that she would hire you because you're around the same age and look a bit like her grandniece, her only living relative, who got married and moved to another system," Cassian explained helpfully.
Jyn's face lit up a bit. "I'd like to try my luck with the repair shop first. I've worked in a couple of those and I know a thing or two about machines and devices. Anyway, I don't have much more to lose, so what the hell, let's try."
Cassian beamed at her. "That's the spirit. I have a feeling that old Peg will like you. Shall we go?"
"Let's go," Jyn agreed, returning the smile. She let Cassian lead the way through the labyrinthine streets. "And later, I have to buy new clothes, more appropriate to blend in. I doubt that this night dress I wear will go unnoticed here."
"I know of a store which sells used and recycled clothes for a very low price, if you're interested," Cassian added.
Jyn nodded. "Okay. I'll have a look at the place after searching for a job."
A while later and many streets further away, they arrived at the repair shop, named simply Peg's.
Originality and imagination are not among her features, it seems, Jyn thought with amusement.
Half an hour later, Jyn had been employed by her new boss and started her job with a feeling of shy hope. She instantly had good vibes about the grumpy woman.
Cassian told her to contact him via commlink when she needed him again, and then said his goodbyes and left.
"A good guy our Cassian, mind me, girl. A bit of a loose cannon, but with his heart in the right place. However, he surely will take poor Maarva to an early grave. Maarva Andor, his mother, such a fine lady. Well, off with the gossip and down to business, girl."
"Of course, ma'am." Jyn grinned from ear to ear, following her boss.
"No ma'am shit, please. Just Peg," the woman grunted, and Jyn's grin widened.