Adam heard movement at the door and assumed it was Joseph. “This could have been avoided, you know.” His voice was cold. It normally took a lot to get Adam angry and the crew had rarely seen him mad at any of them. “This is your fault, Joseph.” He picked Elissa up. She’d stopped crying, which was good, but he knew she couldn’t entirely calm down until she was in the light. “If you hadn’t gone chasing after Rhea last night this wouldn’t have happened. Elissa wouldn’t have wandered back here and would have had to face the dark. She had planned to be with you last night, not reliving a nightmare.” He was doing good to control his voice. He wanted to yell at Joseph for being so stupid. “You probably believe her fear of the dark to be childish. You’d be afraid of it too if you’d gone through what she had. They locked her away in a room in the basement, the size of a coffin. They forced her to stand there for who knows how long in the dark and in the cold. They didn’t feed her, didn’t give her water. You lose all concept of time there. It’s torture. Your legs go numb from standing there and you can’t sit or kneel to help them. She can’t be left in the dark. She must have told you this.” He shook his head. “For her health she is to stay in your cabin for the rest of the trip. That’s a doctor’s orders.”

 He dared Joseph to challenge his order. “You owe her an apology if not more.” He pushed past Joseph to carry Elissa up into the open air. He stormed across the deck to Joseph’s cabin and waited assuming that the captain would come and open the door. He spoke softly to Elissa while he waited, trying to get her to open her eyes and realize she was safe.

Elissa shook her head. “He lied. He lied.” She muttered. Reality and nightmare were still mixed in her mind. This was the worst it’d ever been for her.