Roja spends the rest of the day in the library. She dives into a world of drama and happy endings. Eventually, Anne has to send her to bed when it is already dark outside. Roja doesn’t want to fall asleep. She knows that her nightmares will remind her of her own story. She doesn’t want to remember her own story anymore, she wants to remember the stories in all the books she reads. However, her tiredness makes her fall asleep rather quickly. At that moment, she doesn’t know that this night, she’ll have one of the worst nightmares she’s ever had.

Roja is caught in a plain room. She is fully aware that she’s just having a nightmare but that doesn’t mean that she can change anything about it. After all, everything feels real. However, she’s her younger self now and she knows this room too well. Her stomach growls. “Hello? I’m hungry!” the young Roja shouts although, in her thoughts, she knows this isn’t a good idea. Just a second later, Dexter Smith enters the room.

“Stop shouting or you’ll starve here,” he says in an annoyed tone.

“Please, Dexter, let me out of here,” Roja begs.

“Don’t call me Dexter! One day I’ll be the most powerful gang leader! Show some respect or you’ll never see the daylight again!”

“No, please not, sir!” Roja begs.

“Now shut up,” Dexter orders.

“But I’m cold and hungry,” Roja replies. Her point of view in this nightmare changes. Now, she sees herself and Dexter standing there from outside of her younger self. She knows exactly what will happen next, she’s been in this exact situation. She sees Dexter shrugging, he never cared about her. She doesn’t even understand how his father got permission to take in foster kids. He is a gang leader and doesn’t even try to hide that! Back on that day, Roja was just looking forward to the day when she could finally go to her new foster father as this was just a temporary place to stay until her foster father was ready. Now, she knows that Ric wasn’t any better than Dexter.

The younger version of her tries to say something, but Dexter’s fist on her shoulder makes her stumble backwards before he pushes her to the floor and kicks against her ribs. “By now, you should know what happens when you make a gang leader angry!” he shouts. Roja can feel the pain on her side and her younger self starts crying. In this nightmare, she’s forced to watch the whole scene unfold without being able to safe herself from the pain. “Stop crying!” the gang leader’s son shouts.

“Stop crying, Roja,” a friendlier voice says.

“Jason? What’s he doing here?” Roja thinks, but the younger version of her doesn’t hear him. She’s alone with Dexter.

“You’re safe here. Roja!” Jason shouts. Roja gets pulled out of her nightmare, leaving her younger self behind.

As Roja opens her eyes, she sees Jason standing in the middle of her room, looking very concerned. “Sorry for waking you up again,” she mumbles.

“It’s okay. I know you can’t do anything against it and you’re not doing it on purpose,” Jason replies calmly. While Roja sits up, he adds “Do you want me to get you something to drink?” She shakes her head, explaining that she can get it herself. “Are you sure? You just woke up from a nightmare,” Jason asks.

“Yes, walking always helps me a bit to forget about it.”

As she’s about to get up, she sees someone else standing right outside her room. “Jason? Who is that?!” a girl says. The short-haired blonde girl walks into Roja’s room while Jason stares at her angrily. He told her not to go around without him. “Are you serious? Two girls in one night?!” the girl shouts.

Jason wants to lecture her because of her disrespectful tone towards him, the gang leader, but as he sees Roja shaking in fear, all he says is, “Leave. Now.”

“Who is she?!” the gang member asks again. Roja, still sitting on her bed, tries to answer but no words come out of her mouth.

“I said you can leave now!” Jason says sternly.

The girl rolls her eyes before turning around, “Suit yourself. You know you won’t find anyone better than me.”

Jason crosses his arms and in a slow and too calm voice he says, “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” With that, he focuses his attention on Roja again. He knows that he made it clear to the blonde girl that she got herself in trouble with this behaviour. “Sorry for that,” Jason mumbles, waiting for Roja to get comfortable again. He didn’t notice until now that she held her breath when he started shouting.

Roja’s mind is racing, she’s caught between the tension of this situation and the pain of her nightmare. “She’s just one of my business partners,” Jason explains. Even though Roja is naive sometimes, she realises that this is a lie. However, she believes that he has a good reason for lying and doesn’t question him. Jason notices that he made the situation awkward and heads down to the kitchen to get Roja something to drink while she can calm down.

When he comes back, he asks, “What was your nightmare about?”

Roja takes the glass of water and looks away while mumbling, “Dexter Smith. You probably don’t know this but his father is a gang leader.” Jason nods trying to make it seem as if this was new to him. “It was just really difficult there. I was hungry and cold most of the time. Some of his friends, members of his father’s gang, they were always around. He wanted to show off his power by…,” Roja explains, but she gets cut off by her memories, taking her breath away. Panic rises inside of her as she can’t breathe anymore and starts shaking.

It only takes Jason a second to realise what’s happening. He kneels down in front of her and tries to get her to look at him, “Roja, you need to breathe. Come on, breathe with me, in and out.” As he tries to get her to breathe with him, he sees her eyes tearing up. Out of instinct, he grabs her hands and keeps them from shaking. The touch makes Roja focus on Jason and his breathing. Slowly, she calms down again, feeling the panic fading away. After she has gained control of her breathing again, Jason stays right there in front of her but he lets go of her hands. Tears are running down her cheeks uncontrollably.

“What else did I expect? I knew from the first day that they are part of a gang. They are supposed to be this way. Gang leaders are ruthless and heartless,” Roja mumbles. After taking a deep breath, she watches a slightly sad looking Jason getting uncomfortable. “I’m glad I’m not with a gang anymore,” she adds, hoping that this will make the situation more comfortable again.

In the meantime, Jason’s thoughts make his mood drop, “I can never tell her who I am. She’s already afraid of me. She’d also be afraid of Oren and Lola. She doesn’t deserve to be afraid of her only friends.” Trying to keep a relaxed expression on his face, he asks, “Did the authorities find out what was going on? Was that the reason why you left the Smiths?”

“No, I was never supposed to stay with them. They just took me in until my next foster family, Ric, was ready,” Roja explains. Jason knows there must be something wrong about this. No sane human being would give a foster kid to the Smiths.

“He’ll pay for this…,” Jason thinks before stopping his thoughts again. He can’t start a war with the Smiths again just because of one girl! However, he really wants to finally get rid of his biggest enemy. This is just another reason why it should happen sooner rather than later.

When he stands up, he says, “You’re safe here, they can’t hurt you anymore.” Roja nods while trying to get the pictures of her past out of her head, but she knows that her nightmares will be right back once she falls asleep again. Jason knows this too and, in his mind, he tries to think of something that used to help him with his nightmares.

“If you want, I can stay until you fall asleep,” he suggests. The shy girl takes a moment to think about this offer. She’s never had someone there while she was falling asleep. Can she trust him? He’s Lola’s brother, he wouldn’t hurt her, right?

Roja is unsure until she looks at Jason’s eyes that only show concern and compassion for her. “Yes, please, if you don’t mind,” she says. With that, she lies back down on the bed. Jason sits down on the floor again and says goodnight to her. He stays there for over half an hour, not knowing that Roja fell asleep after just a few minutes. She is exhausted but she also feels as safe as she hasn’t felt in a very long time. Most importantly, she doesn’t have another nightmare that night.