In His Protective Custody. Marie Ferrarella

      “Okay, we’re almost past the worst part,” she told him. He was being very quiet. She didn’t even hear him breathing. Sparing him a glance as she worked the bullet out of his flesh, she asked, “How are you doing?”

      He watched her work in utter fascination. “Don’t feel a thing.”

      She detected a note of frustration in his voice. He had no idea how lucky he was not to “feel a thing.” “Good.”

      But it wasn’t, he thought. Not feeling anything made you hollow and that was how he felt, had felt for a lot of years. As if he was hollow. Unable to reach out, unable to forge any sort of a relationship with a woman. He had nothing to draw on as an example. All he remembered was shouting. Words of recrimination would bounce back and forth between his parents with frightening regularity. No words of endearment counterbalanced that, no warmth at all, other than the type that came from a heater in the garage.

      “If you say so,” Zane commented on the doctor’s pronouncement.

      Finally coaxing her quarry out into the open, Alyx deposited the bullet into the corner of the tray with no small feeling of triumph.

      She glanced at her patient. His expression was completely neutral. He neither looked happy to be done with it or grimacing in anticipation of the pain.

      “You are a very complex human being, Officer Calloway,” she commented.

      He said nothing.

      Alyx began to clean the wound again, making it as sterile as possible before she started sewing up the hole. The ensuing silence made her uncomfortable.

      “So, are you a Yankees fan, or do you like to root for the underdog and cheer for the Mets?” she asked him as she prepared the sutures and needle.

      Zane lifted his other shoulder and let it drop dismissively. He’d never watched more than a part of a game and those instances only occurred when he was at someone else’s place and they were watching the event. He had no use for watching grown men swinging a stick at a ball.

      “Neither.”

      There was finality in his voice. She raised an eyebrow in his direction. “You don’t follow baseball?” she concluded.

      Zane moved his head from side to side only once. “No.”

      She tried to remember if she’d ever met anyone who didn’t root for their home team. “How about football?”

      The answer was the same. “No.”

      “Basketball?” she guessed. “Soccer?”

      “No and no.”

      She wasn’t about to give up. There had to be some sport he enjoyed watching if not playing. He didn’t make her think of someone who liked being on the sidelines. “Bowling? The poker channel?”

      Each question drew out the same answer. His “no” grew a little firmer each time.

      He completely fascinated her. “A man not into sports. I didn’t know there was such a creature.” Her smile raced straight into his insides, pureeing them before he could think to sideline it. “Maybe you’re not so complex after all.”

      His reasons sounded completely plausible to him. “I don’t have time to follow sports.”

      What did he do that fired his imagination so much it kept him away from vegging out before his set at least once a week? she wondered. “What do you have time for?”