Author's Note

In celebration of Amazon Prime Video's newest series Panic, I am thrilled to be teaming up with Amazon Prime Video and Wattpad to write this exclusive chapter that puts my characters from this story into the world of Panic!

I hope this chapter intrigues and inspires you to learn more about Panic. Visit the #PanicWritingContest on Wattpad for the chance to put your creative writing chops to the test and learn more about the show!

To find out more about the contest, prizes, and how to enter, check out the #PanicWritingContest here: wattpad.com/AmazonPrimeVideo

Don't forget to watch the series premiere on May 28th, only on Amazon Prime Video, here: http://primevideo.com/

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I thought I knew what a poor, tired town looked like. St. Augustine, the town where I used to attend school, wouldn't ever appear on a Christmas television special. Not with its busted roads and sagging buildings- but the town had some charm. They kept the small town square neat and clean and brimming with southern nostalgia, hoping to tempt visitors into lingering beyond a quick stop at the gas station.

Carp, Texas didn't give a damn.

I'd been here for nearly an entire year now and had yet to find a single spot that exuded anything but neglect and apathy. Oh, there were a few homes that stood above the rest, with freshly painted siding and windows without aluminum foil pasted against the glass. Heck, just living in a double-wide trailer instead of a single wide put you solidly in the upper middle class around here. If you lived in a house, you might as well be royalty.

The longer I was here, the more I realized the problem extended beyond the town's exterior. It wasn't all that different from my little town in Mississippi- potholes damaged cars, boarded-up buildings outnumbered the rest, and the streets were lined with folks carrying groceries because they didn't have a vehicle.

No, the actual difference was in its people. Their spirits were more worn than the roads. In St. Augustine, they waved and smiled at you when you passed, but here, only a few were strong enough to lift their eyes from the ground in front of their feet. And you were more than likely to get a grimace or a middle finger if they caught you staring.

When Mama called to check on me, I acted like this place was as pretty as a postcard. With her witchy intuition, she saw right through my lies, but she'd yet to call me on them. Clemmy wouldn't have hesitated to tell me the entire human world looked like this place. A world without magic.

As a witch without power, I belonged here. No one would come out and say it, but I knew it. They knew it. We all knew it.

I came back to the present and hugged my knees to my chest. It was the day after graduation, and the night the bravest of the recent graduates would enter Panic. The day of the Jump. Dozens of kids cheered and drank and danced on the beach. This was the most alive I'd ever seen anyone, but every smile and glance had a hunger behind it. These spectators were like the ones in Roman amphitheaters- here for a violent show and only blood would satisfy their appetites.

I peered at the forty foot cliffs of craggy rock towering over the quarry and shivered. There would be blood before the night was over. I was certain of that.

"Sorry, Rose," Flannery said in a breathless voice as she dropped to the towel beside me and handed me a sweating beer. "Took forever to get through that crowd."

"And it didn't have anything to do with stopping to talk to everyone around you?"

She grinned and shrugged before sweeping her braids- cherry red at the moment- over her shoulder and putting the rim of the bottle to her full bottom lip. Mississippi or Texas, it didn't matter where Flannery found herself. She made friends. She would've been fine with or without me, but I couldn't say the same.

When she announced she was moving before the start of our senior year at St. Augustine Prep, it devastated me. She was my only friend in the human world, and I lacked the natural charisma she exuded. Senior year looked bleak- at school and at home- and only the knowledge I would leave the witch world behind completely when I graduated got me through the summer.

Two weeks before school started, Mama sat me down and asked me if I wanted to finish my senior year with Flannery. It would mean saying goodbye to Willow, and her dangerously handsome cousin, Ash, but as much as they meant to me, they were not part of my future. Once I left, there would be no coming back.

"You two came," Heather said, passing us with her friend, Natalie at her side. Natalie's smile was forced, and the vacant expression behind her eyes as she looked at us told me she couldn't quite place our names. Heather's smile was genuine enough, but there was a nervous edge anchoring it to somewhere just short of reaching her eyes.

"Myra convinced us," Flannery responded.

Myra was a pretty server who worked at the local diner. She wore bright red lipstick that emphasized the nicotine stains on her teeth and uniforms that were always a size wrong. She graduated a few years ago, but I knew if someone gave her half a chance, she'd climb those cliffs tonight and jump from its highest point. That's what this town did to you. Death was a reasonable risk when the alternative was being stuck in Carp.

Someone called Natalie's name, and she walked away without speaking. Heather took a step after her but paused.

Flannery took the opportunity to ask, "Are you entering?"

Heather shook her head forcefully. "Nope. Just here to cheer on my friend. What about you two?"

"$50,000 is a lot of money," Flannery replied. It wasn't an answer, but it was all Heather needed to hear.

Nine months ago we were the new kids in town who were cornered on our first day and informed of our duty to donate a dollar a day to the money pot for a game only seniors could play. A game we could play if we wanted. At first, neither of us wanted anything to do with it, refusing even to donate, but after a couple of gentle reminders and one not so gentle warning, we caught up on our back pay and faithfully deposited our money every day.

Then Flannery got word her daddy had been injured on the oil rig, and her college money disappeared overnight, barely covering the influx of medical bills. I knew before she told me she'd be jumping from the cliffs with the rest of the contestants the day after graduation. I promised to be supportive, but when the first college acceptance letters came back- all yeses but no scholarships, I knew I had to declare my intentions to compete as well. My family could afford to send me to college, but they didn't see the value in it. And I was too proud to ask for one more thing from them.

But here in the dark, next to the cold, tomblike water it was hard to remember the reasons for scaling those cliffs. When Heather walked away, Flannery took my hand in hers and squeezed.

"You don't have to do this," she said. It wasn't the first time she'd said it. "If I win, I'm going to split it with you."

"And if I win, I'm splitting it with you. Two in the game are better odds."

"Right. Better odds," she repeated. Then I shuddered. "Better odds of dying, too. Someone did last year you know."

Neither of us spoke for several minutes, and slowly the surrounding mood shifted. People found their towels and chairs and sat down. The drinks became less juice and more liquor as a few of the kids tried to calm their nerves, and I prayed the ones knocking back shots weren't jumping. It was dangerous in the daylight, sober as a nun in church. Drunk and in the dark... I pushed against the turmoil brewing in my gut and banished the thought.

"Come on." I stood up, brushed the gravel from my jean shorts, tied my long black hair into a ponytail, and held out my hand to help her up. "It's starting."

Overhead, stars peppered the black expanse, but a new moon meant they were our only source of light, the fires and lanterns on the beach almost useless from this distance. At first, we tried to climb next to one another, but the lack of hand and footholds, coupled with the less than courteous teens climbing with us, forced Flannery and I apart about a third of the way up.

Every so often, I would pause and squint to my left, searching for a flash of the white cut-offs Flannery wore, and when I found them at least two yards above me, I increased my pace to catch up.

"Hurry up," someone grunted beneath me. I shrieked, my hand slipping from its hold. Stone bit through the tender flesh of my palm and blood dripped down my arm as I flailed wildly for another handhold.

"Shit," the boy said, putting a firm hand on my hip and pulling me back against the face of the cliff. "Sorry. You good?"

I nodded and blew a breath upward to move the hair out of my eyes, but it didn't budge from the damp skin. The Texas air was far less humid than Mississippi, but nervous sweat leaked out of every orifice. Even more so now that the rhythm of my heart returned to normal after my life flashed before my eyes.

"If you shift to the left a bit, you'll find better holds. And about another ten feet up, you can pretty much walk to the lowest jumping point," he said before pulling ahead of me.

"T-thanks," I replied. It was too dark to make out his features clearly, but I thought he might be the other new kid. Dodge? Doge? I couldn't remember. I'd have to find him afterwards and say thank you again.

If I survived the jump.

When I reached the path, I took a moment to gather my wits. A voice boomed from below. It was this year's emcee, Diggins, shouting the name of the first person to enter Panic. No surprise there- it was Ray Hall. Ray wasn't someone I'd talked to much. There was something about him that reminded me of my sister's best friend, Jemina. He wasn't blatantly mean like Jemina, but the similarities were enough that I kept my distance.

Three more jumped by the time I reached the top. None of them Flannery, and when I saw her at the top, frozen against what passed for a tree in Texas, I doubted she could jump at all.

"Flannery?" I whispered, afraid I would spook her.

She didn't move but swung her eyes at me and blinked. "What the hell was I thinking?"

"$50,000, Flan."

"Ain't worth it. I'll have student loans like everybody else," she muttered.

She was right. We could back out right now. Go home and talk about it later like it was the best joke in the world, but we would both have regrets.

"How are you gonna get down?" I asked her. Partly to remind her of how we got up here, and partly because I didn't know the answer. If we really decided to not jump, we might be stuck up here.

Flannery moaned. "Ah, hell. You're right."

"Heather Nill!"

We both jolted as Diggins shouted out Heather's name. So much for just being there to cheer on her friend. What had changed between our conversation on the beach and now? What made Heather think this game was worth the risk?

"I'll go first," I announced after cheers broke out on the beach. Heather must be fine if the people were celebrating. "You okay with that?"

Flannery nodded. "If you can do it, I can do it."

Someone bumped my shoulder as they passed. Then they took a right instead of going straight toward the edge where more people were waiting to jump.

"Hey, what's up there?" I asked.

The girl didn't stop. Just shouted over her shoulder, "High jump and Suicide Leap."

The names sounded familiar. It came to me after a moment. Jumping from high jump earned you twenty-five extra points. Jumping from Suicide Leap was worth an extra one hundred or immunity in a challenge of your choice. And I knew exactly what I had to do.

"I'm going to Suicide Leap," I told Flannery.

She finally moved off the tree and grabbed my arm while shaking her head vigorously. "You're crazy. No way."

"Look," I said, prying her hand from my arm. "If I can do Suicide Leap with no problem, then this is gonna be a piece of cake for you. And we'll have an edge in the game."

"Rose, no-"

"Yes," I said, my mind made up.

This is what friends did for each other, or what I thought they were supposed to do for each other. We made sacrifices. Took risks. Whatever was needed to take care of each other, and Flannery needed me to be brave right now.

"Rose!"

I ignored her cries as I scrambled up the path. It wasn't nearly as bad as the climb to the first jumping point, but every time I thought I was at the top, the path curved and went up just a bit more until, at last, I reached the precipice. And nearly ran back down to Flannery.

This high up, the people on the beach were blobs of color, and the lights were dimmer than the stars above my head. I had the sensation you sometimes got while flying- that inability to tell which way was up or down. It was easy to think I would fall forever.

"Is that someone on Suicide Leap?" Diggins belted through his bullhorn. An excited hush passed through the crowd and then they chanted, "Name, name, name!"

"Rose Wych!" I shouted. No time to think about it. It had to be now. I ran two steps and pushed off the rock with my sneakers.

For a second, it was as if I hovered in the air. Flying. I peeled open the eyes I'd jammed shut and exhaled in awe. And then I plummeted down, a scream trapped in my throat. The high jump passed. Then the lowest jumping point. Flannery's face was a flash of panic, and then the icy waters swallowed me whole.