She slowly shook her head. “It's not to keep me in. It's to keep everything else out.” She swallowed and her lip quivered.
“I didn't want to push you to share more than you were comfortable with, but this isn't healthy, Riley. What are you trying to keep out? What memories are you protecting yourself from? You seem… your reactions seem… like you've been abused. Did someone hurt you? A lover maybe?”
She laughed, a humorless chuckle. “No. No lover. My brother. He hurt me most every day of my childhood. And now he haunts me, even though he doesn't know where I am.”
“I think I need to know about this brother of yours,” Russ replied.
“Why?” she demanded. “I don't want to tell you about him. It's all in the past. I want to forget.”
“Riley, love,” he said gently, stroking her cheek with big,
