In His Protective Custody. Marie Ferrarella

school they chose to attend. They all picked medical school.

      Or rather, it was picked for them. Mama would not hear of any of them being anything else. Fortunately, they all felt the calling. Or at least three of them did. It had taken Krystyna a bit longer to come around.

      And still there had been no attempt on Mama’s part to seal the rift that she had created.

      When Alyx told her mother that she’d been accepted by Patience Memorial Hospital to complete her residency, the older woman finally, grudgingly, came around enough to get in touch with Uncle Josef and Aunt Magda.

      Luckily, when it came to grudges, her aunt and uncle were as different from her mother as night was day. One phone call later she had family here. Family that embraced her and made the scary transition from Illinois to New York so much easier. The ordeal she had envisioned for herself, living with five other roommates in some small, rundown apartment with hot and cold running roaches, was no longer a viable threat.

      She’d been awestruck the first time she’d walked into the apartment her five cousins had lived in during their medical training. Her cousins had all laughed at her expression of wonder, but it wasn’t at her expense. There was a joyfulness to it that she quickly came to expect from these women whose blood was the same as hers. These women who were all on their way to becoming highly respected physicians in their chosen fields.

      As quickly as she came to love them, she was still more than a little in awe. They were all admirable women.

      Maybe that was why Mama had been so adamant about all four of them becoming doctors. Growing up, there had been no other course to follow, no other careers even to consider. Mama wouldn’t allow it. Her girls, she’d said time and again, were going to become doctors no matter what the cost. Thanks to Aunt Zofia, there was no amassed debt to face.

      But even if Aunt Zofia had been a pauper, the course of their lives had been laid out. Mama had spoken.

      Though she loved the woman dearly—they all did—Alyx knew, as did her sisters, that Mama had an obsessive, highly competitive side to her. And that competitiveness always involved the daughters of Papa’s older brother.

      Her cousins, bless them, were nothing like she’d expected—and turned out to be everything that she needed. Instantly friendly, instantly warm, their combined support made her first day at Patience Memorial not utterly terrible. The latter condition was purely the results of the mentor she’d been assigned. Her first rotation was in the ER with a martinet who shouted rather than talked, put down rather than lifted up.

      Rumor had it the woman wanted to get the very best out of her and the other residents assigned the ER rotation. That was the rumor. However, Alyx secretly felt that Dr. Gloria Furst enjoyed putting people down and trampling on their self-esteem.

      Alyx refused to let the doctor demoralize her, but it was still an exhausting, draining experience. Four weeks into the rotation and Alyx caught herself praying that the chief of staff or someone else in power would come by unannounced to witness the woman’s M.O.

      But prayer or no prayer, that was not about to happen. Dr. Furst had a network going for her comprised of residents who would do anything not to wash out of the program. Consequently, to cull her favor they clued her in when they heard anything and Dr. Furst always knew when someone of stature within the hospital’s hierarchy would be stopping by.

      It was at that point that the woman went from being the maniacal Mr. Hyde to the kindly Dr. Jekyll. She became sweet enough to send any diabetic in a ten-mile radius into a coma.

      This too shall pass, Alyx told herself as she stretched out on the sofa.

      Two shifts. She’d endured two full, back-to-back shifts. How in heaven’s name did they think she could be at the top of her game in this life-or-death arena by the end of the second shift when her brain felt numb and the rest of her was on automatic pilot? She was lucky she hadn’t killed anyone, she thought with a huge, soul-felt sigh that seemed to all but deplete her.

      She was running on empty.

      Alyx realized that her eyes were closed.

      Two minutes, she promised herself. Two minutes and then she’d get up. That’s all she needed, just two little…

      Her eyes flew open a second before she found solace in sleep.

      She strained to listen. Maybe she’d imagined it. Maybe it was just part of the haze that was descending on her brain—

      Get back here, you damn bitch! Don’t turn your back on me when I’m talking to you! You hear me?

      No, definitely not part of her dream, Alyx thought, swinging her legs off the sofa and sitting up. Her brain didn’t create scenarios like that, even when it had the freedom of sleep.

      The yelling came from her next-door neighbors. Or rather, from her next-door neighbor. A married couple lived there and what she was hearing was only the man’s voice. Hearing it as clearly as if he were in standing in the room with her.

      God forbid, Alyx thought with a shiver. Although he was tall and good-looking in a showy kind of way, Harry McBride gave her the creeps.

      Harry was shouting at his wife, Abby. Again. As far as she could find out from talking to the doorman, Harry and his wife were new to the building. They had moved in just as Marja had moved out to live with her fiancé—now her husband.

      Silence.

      Alyx listened for a moment, clinging to the momentary spate of quiet and hoping that it would continue, signaling an end to the abrupt outburst.

      Maybe it had just been some kind of heated difference of—

      The crash Alyx heard two seconds later followed by a volley of cursing and yelling ushered in a death knell to her sliver of hope. The heart-wrenching, high-pitched yelp of distress was almost too much to bear. She couldn’t quite make out what Abby was saying, but the cadence told her that the woman was pleading.

      Alyx felt herself growing angry.

      Ordinarily, she didn’t meddle in other people’s lives. Had the noise been generated by an untimely party, she would have put cotton in her ears and gone to her bedroom. She had nothing against people having fun, even the noisy kind.

      But this didn’t sound like fun. This was a woman in distress.

      She’d be distressed, too, living with this Neanderthal. She remembered her first encounter with Harry McBride. It was on the elevator, shortly after she’d moved in. He’d actually hit on her. His wife, Abby, a meek, mousey little thing who seemed almost afraid to raise her all but lifeless eyes from the floor, had been right there, a witness to the encounter. Abby had pretended not to hear.

      But she’d heard all right. Alyx would have sworn to it. The woman’s face was flushed with embarrassment—all except for one cheekbone which, despite the heavy layer of foundation appeared bluish. As if there was a bruise beneath the coating of makeup, healing.

      The yelling continued, the volume swelling.

      Alyx shook her head as she walked out into the hallway. The apartment on the other side of the McBrides was vacant so she was the only one privy to this “Punching Judy” show.

      Alyx knocked on the door once, then again, harder this time to be heard above Harry’s voice. She raised her own as she called out, “Abby, is everything all right in there?”

      Instead of Abby, it was her husband who answered the question, punctuating his words with what sounded like a snarl.

      “Everything’s just fine. Now why don’t you mind your own damn business?”

      She was a doctor. Alyx thought, struggling to rein in her anger. As far as she was concerned, humanity was her business. And this surly neighbor had just crossed the line with her.

      But angry as she was, Alyx had no desire to become the man’s next punching bag. So instead of demanding entrance to their apartment, she went into her own, closed the door and waited.

      She