Elia

There’s no way my target was as dangerous as the report suggested.

Now, I had been wrong before, I'll admit that. But I had never met someone as full of childlike wonder as Juniper. She was different than everyone else and not afraid to flaunt it. If she was putting on a front to convince me to spare her, it was a damn good one. Juniper seemed like one of the most genuine people I had ever met.

And even though she had faced trouble left and right ever since she arrived, I had never once heard of her acting with pure malicious intent. Sure, she acted without thinking all of the time, but she never once tried to put others down for the sake of power.

As soon as I opened the mahogany doors into Maximillian’s, she pushed past me and sprinted over to the nearest display, dragging me by the handcuff behind her. 

“What do you think you are doing?” I shouted behind her, trying to ignore the angry glares of wealthy customers Juniper had just shoved aside. 

Sure, the displays were pretty, but they certainly did not merit this much fanfare. There were so many of them, surrounding me on all sides. They stood tall among the sea of shoppers like grandiose monuments of cardboard and plastic, their neon slogans making promises the products couldn’t keep. 

Juniper was standing in front of a display of stuffed wixxes, reading the display text with such vigor as if she had never seen such a thing before.

What was so impressive about the pink stuffed wixxes? They were just replicas of street vermin, dyed a different color and doused in glitter.

But Juniper was acting as if she had never seen glitter before, running her fingers over the sparkly fabric and looking in awe at the sparkly plastic residue on her finger. 

She glanced up at me, and smiled, her eyes shining with a childlike sense of awe. 

“How,” she asked. “How did they capture the stars on just one piece of fabric?”

Still out of breath, I sent her a confused look. 

“What do you mean?”

“See?” Juniper held the stuffed wixx up to my face. “If you hold it up to the light, it shimmers like the night sky on a clear day.”

She lifted up the creature and rotated it slowly, letting the pink glitter shine in the fluorescent light of the store. The sparkles reflected onto the tiled ceiling, projecting pink specks on the white panels. 

I had never realized how pretty glitter was until this moment. Now, I couldn’t stop staring, my attention solely focused shining specks of plastic. Well, and the person holding them. 

We sat in silence for a moment, just watching the way the glitter’s reflections hit the tiles. It was beautiful, a truly magical sight from something so mundane. The obnoxious chatter faded around me as my mind quieted, only listening to the beat of my electric heart.

Juniper was the first to break the silence. 

“It’s…” she paused, unable to think of the right word. “It’s beautiful.”

She slowly set it back down on the shelf, staring at it wistfully.

I picked up the wixx and glanced at the price tag. Just over fifteen thousand credits. Not cheap, but I could make an exception just this once. 

“Do you want me to get you one?” I asked. 

Why did I keep speaking before I could think? I was treating this criminal as if she was my friend.

Of course, she would never say no. I was giving her a chance to live, if only for a little bit longer. 

And here I was, standing in a crowded department store, surrounded by merchandise way beyond my pay grade, and ready to spend way too much money on an overpriced stuffed animal. 

“What?” Juniper exclaimed. “You will? Thank you so much! How can I ever repay you?”

She acted like such a cartoon character sometimes, always so dramatic about the little things. Really, who even says ‘how can I ever repay you’ in real life? It sounds so overdramatic and cheesy. Or at least I thought so until she said it. 

I glanced over at Juniper to find her hugging the sparkly creature with one hand like her life depended on it, occasionally lifting it up to the light to watch the glitter shimmer in the fluorescent glow shining from above. 

Even through all of the ash and grime that clung to her body like wild burrs on new clothes, she was glowing, smiling for what appeared to be the first time in months. 

I couldn’t help but smile back. 

“No need,” I replied. 

“Really?” 

“I don’t mind. It’s just a stuffed animal. Consider it a consolation gift for tearing you away from your life.”

She shot me a grateful smile and trotted over to the next display, stuffed wixx in hand. I followed behind her, worried that my wallet was going to take a serious hit before the day was over. 

I just couldn’t say no to her. 

It was like a moth to a flame, my feelings toward Juniper. I felt it in my bones.

She reminded me of someone long gone, someone I knew before all of the laboratories and testing and metal, so much metal. At least that’s what I told myself. 

She was the star and I was the moon. I was helpless, doing anything and everything  to keep basking in her glow.

Damn.

What was I thinking?

Someone needed to dump a bucket of ice water on my head. I was losing my touch.