The golden medals glinted in the sunlight as Elise flipped them over in her hands, examining the intricate mountain terrain engraved upon each one along with the official SSX logo. It had been another good year, one she could be proud of, not only had she survived - which was always a good thing- but she had also reinforced her reputation as one of the world's top snowboardcross racers. She even thought that Psymon had come to accept the end of their so called relationship quite well, after he had stopped swearing and throwing chairs around the hotel lobby. Even though she knew she'd probably change her mind later on, now at least, she was glad that Psymon had been freed from remand. Granted, Mac still wasn't speaking to her; the few times he had hobbled past on crutches, he had just given her a mean stare. But, on the plus side, Koari had made a full recovery and had even managed to bag a couple of silver medals of her own in the last few racing events.

Elise placed the medals carefully in her suitcase on top of the piles of neatly folded clothes and zipped the case closed. Then, tugging the heavy luggage off the bed, she strode confidently out into the corridor, wheeling it behind her. Her recent brush with death had had an invigorating effect on her and imbued her with a renewed joie de vivre. She was already looking forward to the future; investing her hard earned prize money in new business ventures, assembling the new spring collection for her clothing line, maybe a bit of modelling and then a whole summer aboard her private yacht sailing the wide oceans.

There was only one dark cloud to spoil this perfect vision: her parents and their lengthy divorce settlement battles. However, she had realised that Skye was right: in time she would get over it; it would just take a hell of a lot of surf, sun and snowboarding to get there.

THE END