The rusty fan whirred over the Jade Dragon kitchen, spreading the greasy steam from the woks without relieving the stifling heat. Melody Andersen ground each slash of her knife against the chopping board with the precision of someone who'd carved more than vegetables in her life. The scars on her knuckles—that "NO ONE SAVES ME" in Morse code—gleamed in the fluorescent light, each letter a silent promise.

The rhythm of her slashes was hypnotic: tac, tac, tac. Until the first plate crashed to the floor in the dining room.

didn't raise her head. She didn't need to see to know what was happening. Drunken voices, slurred insults, the sound of a chair being scraped. More idiots who think this is a fight bar, she thought, running the edge of the knife against her soy sauce-stained apron.

The second plate shattered against the wall.

"Son of a bitch!" someone roared outside, followed by the creaking of a table being scraped.

"These bastards again..." she muttered, running the blade along her apron like someone sharpening a weapon.

The swinging kitchen door slammed open. Melody emerged like a tank, the knife still dripping with meat juice, her green eyes shining with that predatory light that made even the drunkest of people gulp.

"Have you forgotten that we come here to eat, not to perform, you pieces of shit?!" she spat, planting herself between the tables like an executioner.

The two drunks—one with his shirt torn, the other still holding an empty bottle—froze. The entire place held its breath.

"Hey, calm down, skinny" the taller one muttered, but Melody was already on top of her, the knife flashing near her throat.

"Skinny. You called me skinny?" Her smile was the most terrifying thing. "Do you know how many like you I skinned in prison for less?"

The silence thickened. Even the refrigerator stopped humming.

It was then that Lao Chen, Melody's elderly boss, poked his head out of the kitchen, chewing on a toothpick boredly.

"It says 'No refunds' there," he pointed at the sign with an ink-stained finger. "But if you kill him, the fine is..." he did mental calculations. "...$3,500, Plus $200 for carpet cleaning."

Melody turned to him, furious:

"What do you care?!"

"Nothing to me," Lao Chen shrugged, pulling out his expense report. "But you signed a contract. 'If an employee kills a client, the employee pays.' Paragraph four."

The knife trembled in Melody's hand. The drunks took the opportunity to crawl toward the exit.

"Leave before I give a damn about the fine!" Melody yelled at them, throwing the knife, which lodged itself in the door frame, sealing their escape.

Lao Chen jotted down in his notebook: "Knife damaged: -$15 off salary," as Melody kicked a chair on her way to the kitchen.

"And someone get me a damn beer!" she roared before disappearing behind the curtains, where she began to destroy a cabbage with renewed viciousness.

In the living room, Lao Chen simply poured another round for the surviving customers.

"Don't worry," he said as he collected the money. "She only kills... sometimes."