The little star-faced man scrambled across the candy bowl, diving and rolling away from her descending fingers. She snagged him easily, pinching his nude chest with her turquoise nails and lifting him off the table. He thrashed and squealed and beat his fists on her nails. “Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s not actually sentient. These are just defense mechanisms.” And she dropped him into my glass of water, where he writhed, his star curling inward, his skull dissolving, his eyes going empty, his corpse streaming away into bubbles and tinting the water a cheerful shade of orange. She nudged the glass toward me, not so much smiling as revealing her teeth. “Now, about that contract…”
