Gabrielle thought back to the shocking exchange in the infirmary. Everyone had been appalled at Eva's actions, and stunned by her crazed accusations against Lucan. All except him. "Lucan, the things that she said..."
"All true, as you have seen for yourself. But you still defended me. That's twice you've kept my weakness from being exposed." He scowled, turning his head away from her. "I won't ever ask you to do that again. My problems are my own."
"And you need to address them."
"What I need is to get some clothes on and go take a look at those pictures Gideon is uploading. If they give us enough info on the asylum's layout, we can hit the place tonight."
"What do you mean, hit it tonight?"
"Take it out. Shut it down. Blow the fucking thing sky-high."
"You can't be serious. You said yourself it's probably full of Rogues. Do you honestly think that you and three other guys will survive going up against unknown numbers?"
"We've done it before. And there will be five of us," he said, as if that should make a difference. "Gideon has said he wants in on whatever we do. He'll be taking Rio's place."
Gabrielle scoffed, disbelieving. "And what about you? You're barely on your feet."
"I'm walking. I'm well enough. They won't be expecting a retaliation so soon, which makes it the best time for us to strike."
"You must be out of your mind. You need rest, Lucan. You can't do anything until you get your strength back. You need to heal." She watched a muscle work in his jaw, a tendon ticking beneath the sallow, drawn slope of his cheek. His features were harder than normal, too lean. "You can't go out there the way you are."
"I said, I'm fine."
The words rushed out of him, a coarse rasp in his throat. When he looked at her again, his silver irises were shot with bright amber flecks of color, like fire licking through ice.
"You're not. Not by a long shot. You need nourishment. Your body's been through too much recently. You need to feed."
She felt a surge of coldness sweep the room and knew it came from him. She was provoking his anger. She'd seen him at his worst before and lived to tell of it, but maybe she was pushing too hard right now. She could sense he'd been itchy and uptight, his temper on a short leash ever since he'd brought her to the compound. Now he was dangerously on edge; did she really want to be the one to shove him past his threshold of control?
Screw it. Maybe that was just what was needed.
"Your body is beaten down, Lucan, not just from your injuries. You're weak. And you're afraid."
"Afraid." He swung an icy look at her, sneered with arctic sarcasm. "Of what?"
"Yourself, for starters. But I think you're even more afraid of me."
She waited for an instant rebuttal, something cold and nasty to match the wintry rage that was rolling off of him like frost. But he didn't say anything. He glared at her for a long moment, then turned away and strode, a bit stiffly, toward a tall bureau on the other side of the room.
Gabrielle sat there on the floor, watching as he yanked open drawers, pulled out clothing and tossed it onto the bed.
"What are you doing?"
"I don't have time to debate this with you. It's pointless."
A cabinet of weapons opened before he reached it, the doors swinging on their hinges with an invisible, violent jerk. He stalked over and pulled out a retractable shelf. At least a dozen daggers and other lethal-looking blades lay in orderly rows on the shelf's velvet liner. With a careless grab, Lucan swiped two large knives in black leather sheaths. He slid open another shelf and selected a big, brushed stainless steel handgun that looked like something out of an action movie nightmare.
"You don't like what I'm saying, so you're going to run away from me instead?" He didn't look at her, or even curse in reply. No, he completely ignored her, and that really pissed her off. "Go ahead, then. Pretend you're invincible, that you're not scared to death of letting someone care for you. Run away from me, Lucan. You're only proving my point."
Gabrielle felt a keen sense of hopelessness as Lucan retrieved an ammunition clip from the cabinet and shoved it into the pistol's hollow grip. Nothing she said would stop him. She felt helpless, like she was trying to wrap her arms around a storm.
She glanced away from him, her eyes straying back to the table where she sat, at the plates and silverware in front of her. She saw the unused knife lying there, the polished blade gleaming.
She couldn't hold him back with words, but there was something else...
She pushed back the long sleeve of her robe. Very calmly, with the same fearless resolve that had served her a hundred times before, Gabrielle picked up the knife and pressed the edge of it to the fleshy part of her forearm. A small pressure, the barest slice of the blade through her skin.
She didn't know which of Lucan's senses responded first, but the roar he let loose when his head came up and he saw what she had done rattled every piece of furniture in the room.