“DANA FAIRBANKS!!! OMG!!!”

It had begun.

“Hey. Hi. Hey guys,” Dana repeated continually as she passed through the excited crowd of fans that had situated themselves outside the hotel where all of the competitors were staying. Dana stood at the entrance for a good twenty minutes signing autographs and having photos taken, but when the crowd simply increased, Tonya decided to call it a day.

“Please keep a pathway for Ms. Fairbanks to walk down. Thank you. Please step away,” Tonya said as she pushed through the crowd, dragging Dana with her. “My god some of those people are like animals.”

“Tell me about it,” Dana mumbled, silently cursing herself afterwards for speaking ill about her fans. If anything she should be thanking them, not the other way around. “I didn’t mean that.”

“I know,” Tonya said sincerely as they entered the hotel elevator. Tonya knew the reason behind Dana’s bad mood. She had got the low down on the Alice affair after boarding the airplane to find Dana in tears. “You really ought to try and get a few hours sleep Dane. We’ve got a small press conference at 7 but apart from that, your day is pretty much free.”

“I really should just train,” Dana said dully, her mind obviously not on training. Her mind had been on nothing but Alice since the phone call earlier.

“Training will do you no good if you can’t concentrate,” Tonya said with a knowing smile as they reached Dana’s door. “Please, just go and rest. You can train for a few hours later.”

“You’re the boss,” Dana replied, opening the door and stepping through. “So seven?”

“I’ll come round at 6:45. Be ready.”

“Will do.”

As soon as Tonya left Dana began to regret not training. Training was her way of pushing aside all her problems. It made sense to her.

“I should have trained,” Dana mumbled as she chucked her suitcase on the bed and opened it. Staying here, ‘relaxing’ as Tonya like to call it, was no good for her. All she could think about was Alice. Alice who she had left umming and ahhing on the phone earlier that day. The phone! She suddenly remembered that she forgot to turn her mobile back on after the flight. Maybe Alice had been trying to reach her all this time? Maybe she was just shocked beforehand.