Page 129 of Hate You Most

Viktoriya couldn't help but smile.

Dakota tilted her head slightly. “Do you think she’ll be scared?”

Viktoriya’s chest tightened. “Yes. I think she will be.”

Dakota nodded once, like she expected that answer. “Okay,” she said quietly. “Then we won’t be.”

“Okay,” she repeated.

For so long, decisions had been made around her, for her, or out of fear of what would happen if she made them herself. Signing the paperwork to bring her sister here meant she could no longer make decisions based on fear or emotion. She couldn't be the frightened daughter anymore. She had to be a big sister. The one she had never been before.

“What’s her name?” Dakota asked after a moment.

“Lena,” she said. “Lena Mikhailovna Volkova.”

Dakota reached over then, slowly, giving her enough time to pull away if she wanted, and pulled her into a tight hug. Viktoriya didn’t pull away.

“She’ll be safe here,” Dakota said as they parted.

“I hope so.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

June 28th, 2023.

— Bloomfield Hills training center, Detroit, Michigan.

The faint buzz of the overhead fluorescent lights was the only noise around her. The air inside the rink was cold enough to sting her lungs, but she knew it would disappear the moment she'd properly warmed up on the ice and started doing actual moves. Still, she welcomed the cold.

The light shone reflections into the ice, like an untouched and unexplored starry night.

She stood in front of the ice for a long moment, one gloved hand resting on the boards.

For so much of her life, skating had been the thing she measured herself against and by. It had been pressure and control and applause and the weight of everyone's expectation. It had taken years from her, taken choices she had not fully understood she was making, and it had taken the version of herself that believed she could have kept everything separate forever. It had taken so much from her, and it had also given her everything she had ever known. Figure skating was half of her life, and Dakota was the other half. For the first time she didn't have to choose one over the other, they could simply coexist.

She laced her skates and stepped on the ice. The moment her blade bit into the ice, the whole world disappeared around her. She was just a person on the ice, suspended between gravity and grace.

This was what remained after it all. Not her once-promising career or the Olympic gold medal, or the countless other medals she'd won. The ice was still there. It had never cared about her reputation, her secrets, or what the world expected from her. It was simply there.

She pushed off the ice, circled the rink.

Cold air brushed against her face, the edges of the world blurring into nothing as she picked up speed. She was one with the ice below, one with the blades on her skates.

She traced a wide curve around the far end of the rink, her arms relaxed at her sides, then lifted them slightly as she turned back towards the center.

There was no music, no crowd, no judges, and no cameras. Just the solitary sound of her blades and the low hum of the lights overhead. The emptiness didn't feel lonely, it was honest more than anything else.

She picked up speed, moved into a triple axel and set off on one foot. In the air her mind wandered back to her home country.

She didn't think of Russia with the same panic she used to, now it was with a distant melancholic clarity. It had once been her home, or something like a home—and figure skating had been her escape. It encompassed her mother’s hand and her father’s rules and her sister's happiness, and the years she'd trained her body into compliance. Russia held the fears that made her disappear into herself. The love she'd buried inside of her mind. She had gained so much from her country, but she would never be accepted with open arms.

She had gained so much in letting it all go. That thought surprised her enough that she almost laughed midair.

The life and the perfect version of herself that she'd spent so long protecting felt so small and unimportant compared to actually living how she wanted. Dakota, the truth, and the people who had chosen to stand beside her was all that mattered. Even her sister, and the relationship they were basically starting from scratch. She somehow knew that it would end up okay in the end.

She landed on the outside edge of her skate and it bit into the smooth ice. Viktoriya made another turn, tighter this time, and at the far end of the rink she caught a movement near the door.

She knew who it was before her brain registered it fully. It was the love of her life, the only person that ever mattered more to her than skating.