Page 138 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

It felt like today belonged entirely to Tora.

She had taken first place across the entire standings table, and now only one skater remained. Alisa. The final performance of the women’s competition. Somehow, that made the pressure feel even heavier.

Alisa could still hear the crowd applauding for Tora, could still feel the energy surrounding the new leader of the event.

209.90.

The highest score on the board.

And then Alisa’s name was called.

For the last time.

Something inside her skipped a beat. She still carried a lingering fear, something almost like PTSD, tied to the way skaters were called onto the ice. Maybe it came from all the failed attempts, from being yelled at, humiliated, and emotionally beaten down for years… Or maybe she was simply terrified of losing herself and disappointing everyone around her.

To catch up to Tora, to surpass her, Alisa would have to skate the performance of her life.

Alisa inhaled slowly.

Exhaled.

Then, with her eyes closed and her hands crossed tightly against herself, she stepped onto the ice.

The arena applauded as the final skater entered the rink. Alisa waved briefly to the audience, deliberately looking toward the farthest, highest rows of the stadium so she wouldn’t accidentally see Tora.

Because one glance at her now might destroy everything holding her together.

Alisa skated to the center of the ice as Descending by Sleep Token began to play through the arena.

The crowd immediately fell silent.

Her black feathered costume, dark and dramatic like a fallen angel dragged out of heaven itself, caught the light with every movement. The sharp black lines around her eyes looked like blades capable of cutting through the air with a single glance. Her expression was terrifyingly serious, and the emotions inside her were even worse—heavy, uncontrollable, consuming her from the inside out.

Everything that had happened with Tora over the past few days was killing her.

The opening beat started low and restrained, and Alisa moved her arms slowly like wings unfolding toward the audience with first one side and then the other. She dropped sharply onto one knee, spinning across the ice while clutching her head with both hands before rising into a rigid, almost militant stance, chin lifted slightly forward as if challenging the entire arena.

And then she saw her.

Tora stood behind the cameras near the boards, watching silently, without expression.

Alisa skated past slowly, but that single glance was enough. The emotions crashed into her all over again.

She snapped her leg upward as if striking through the air itself, the blade slicing sharply beneath the spotlight.

Then she entered a circular edge movement, gliding around her supporting leg with deep control before flowing directly into a Charlotte spiral, folding herself downward while her free leg stretched upward into a near-vertical split line.

The audience applauded immediately.

Alisa accelerated into difficult footwork—twizzles, Mohawks, rapid edge changes, complex turns layered one after another to increase difficulty and score. Her blades carved violently precise patterns into the ice as she built speed for the first major jumping pass.

Then she exploded upward into a quadruple Lutz.

Clean landing.

The arena erupted.

She smiled for the first time—a sharp, almost dangerous smile—and immediately entered a jump combination: quadruple Salchow into quadruple Lutz. The landings were tight, her body fighting to hold itself together through momentum and adrenaline.