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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'What are you even meant to do here all summer?' I'd asked early into my stay in Carp, Texas, not knowing the trouble that those words might cause.
It hadn't been my intention to spend a summer away, but when Dad reminded me we'd not checked in with his half-sister and my cousins for a while, I knew what he was hinting at. Podunk, backwater American towns weren't my idea of a good time. In fact, I'd intended to travel with the Darcy family to their home in the south of France.
Excellent wine and fancy cheese?
I was so there.
But not according to Dad.
Before I knew what was going on, I was bundled onto a plane and headed out to the arse-end of nowhere to spend six weeks with relatives I'd not seen since I was in pigtails and dungarees.
Really, Jenny should have gone with me. We were step-sisters, and she'd felt that it was her duty to introduce herself to family members and make a good impression. Luckily for her, I loved her way too much to make her suffer through a summer in the blistering Texan heat. Besides, Jenny had been raised to be a delicate young English lady. I doubted she'd be able to handle the rough and tumble of small-town America.
Nancy was close to my age. We had the same dark hair and eyes, alabaster skin that burned before it tanned. And she was a recent graduate from Carp High School. Most people would look forward to the move to university, to one last summer with their friends before everything changed. But when I arrived in Carp, I sensed more than just the joviality felt by teenagers when they get their first taste of freedom from school.
Something was in the air.
Something electric.
I'd been in town for a couple of days, staying on the small farm run by Nancy's parents, Trey and Marcia. They were up with the dawn and had long since given up hope of their daughter taking part in working the land. Her younger brother, Bobby, was being groomed to inherit the property when he was old enough. I'd politely turned down a chance to experience farm life. I'd dealt with enough dirt at home growing up in a garage. I wasn't about to spend my summer knee-deep in mud and pig crap.
Thankfully, Nancy's apathy to farm life meant that we were free to take in the few joys that Carp offered. The cinema was almost a year behind on their releases, and as we'd passed by the dark, closed doors that morning, I'd realised that I already owned most of their showings on DVD. The lightbox panels outside of the building declared congratulations for the recent graduates, although some letters were missing. I supposed that vandalism happened everywhere and, in a town like Carp, there wasn't much else for the teen population to do with their time.
We settled into the small diner where only a handful of other patrons sat hunched over newspapers, steaming mugs of pitch-black coffee at their elbows. They paid us no mind, far too invested in whatever was going on locally that they hadn't already heard from their friends and neighbours. I couldn't imagine that there was ever such a thing as breaking news in the town. It was probably all about who'd died recently and football scores. At least, that's what the papers were like back home in my tiny coastal town.
My question hung in the air, far more loaded and heavier than it ought to have been. Nancy pondered on it, her glass of diet coke clutched in her black-painted nails, the condensation trickling from the bottom of the glass and pooling on the lacquered table. Her dark eyes darted furtively this way and that, towards the counter where the cute young man serving was chatting to a blonde girl while she perused the menu.
Nancy leaned in and conspiratorially whispered, 'Ever heard of Panic?'
'Like... like when you freak out about something?'
I knew it was the wrong answer.
'It's this game we play every summer.'
'You say game, but you're giving me vibes like you're talking about The Purge.'
Nancy smirked and shrugged her shoulders lightly. 'It's only like The Purge if you're bad at it.'
My spine stiffened. I knew nothing more than the name of this event, and already I knew it was bad news. Nancy was positively vibrating with excitement at the very idea of the so-called game.
'It's for graduating seniors,' she said. 'No one knows what the challenges will be. All you need to do is hang in there until the end. If you do, you win a butt-load of cash.'
'And you're doing this?' I asked. 'Willingly?'
'A lot of people are.'
'No. No way,' I said. 'Nancy, you're my cousin and I mean this with absolute respect, but you can't make me believe that an entire senior year of teenagers can be so collectively stupid.'
'Harsh, but fair,' she allowed. 'Look, when the announcement drops, come with me. Even if you just watch. You probably can't take part because you're not a senior but, I don't know, maybe they'll let you try one challenge just to see what it's all about.'
Everything told me I should shut this down immediately. It was insanity. If Will ever found out that I'd done anything so stupid or dangerous, he would kill me, especially after I ran off alone in Italy and was almost murdered by Gideon. I'd promised that I'd take no kind of risk like that again.
On the other hand, could I really let my cousin head off alone if I could take care of her?
'Fine,' I said. 'I mean, how bad can it be?'
Fireworks exploded across the entire town. They illuminated miles of a star-filled sky, raining sparks and embers down upon the people who'd stepped from their homes to take in the sight. We took the back roads in Nancy's old beater and I stared through the passenger window, feeling the warm summer air whip through my hair and listening to the faint sound of police sirens far away.
'They try to find Panic every year,' Nancy explained. 'But the judges are always one step ahead.'
There was pride in her voice. Smugness. It was as though she thought that she and the other teens were invincible. Once upon a time, I'd have thought the same. Only such a thought could have led to me running through Rome alone at night, looking for a psychopath who'd abducted my friend.
Now I knew better.
Now, I feared that Nancy and her friends were risking their lives all in the name of one silly game every summer.
An uneasy silence settled between us for the rest of the drive. I didn't know if my cousin noticed it. She seemed too filled with anticipation to pay me much attention. Her mind was on the game.
Mine ought to have been on it, too.
If it had, I might have been better prepared for what was to come.
'Ho. Lee. Crap.'
We stood amongst a throng of teenagers who'd arrived before us at the location of the first challenge. Earlier that day, paper had rained down, covered in strange symbols that I was at a loss to explain or understand. Nancy seemed to know exactly what to do, loaned me a swimming costume – what she called a bathing suit – and we'd left the farm with hollow, ill-thought-out excuses while wearing them beneath our clothes.
'Come on,' she said, taking my hand. 'Let's ask if you can take part.'
My heart was thrumming in my chest as we approached a girl handing out post-it notes and sticking them to people's phones. She smiled when Nancy approached but faltered at the sight of me.
'No outsiders, you know that,' she hissed.
'Oh, come on,' Nancy urged. 'She's my cousin, and she's cool. Right, Beth?'
'Right?' I didn't sound convincing.
'What are you, Australian or something?' the girl asked.
I groaned internally. 'British.'
'Sorry, you can't take part. You didn't pay in, you didn't graduate from here, so you're not eligible. If you want to watch, I can't stop you seeing as how you're already here, but that's it.'
'Can't she just do the jump?' Nancy implored. 'No cash, no obligation to take part in anything else. Please? I just want her to experience Panic a little.'
The girl's eyes pinched in frustration. She dug her phone out from the pocket of her impossibly tight denim shorts. 'Let me check.'
Nancy gave me a thumbs-up and grinned. I smiled in return and silently prayed that the girl would tell me I wasn't eligible, that I could only sit back and watch this insanity take place, and that my cousin might reconsider her participation if I wasn't standing alongside her.
'Okay,' the girl said at last. Her screen had lit up with messages while she tapped away at it with her thumbs. 'You can do the jump, but you don't get any points, you can't be in any other events, and you can't tell anyone else that you're here. If you do, we're deducting points from your cousin. You got that?'
I wanted to decline, but Nancy's eyes were pleading with me to accept. It was an enormous risk to her points if I told anyone and, honestly; I wanted to tell her parents. If the first event was jumping off a cliff and narrowly avoiding the jagged rocks at the bottom, then it was almost guaranteed that the rest would be even more dangerous. I didn't want to spend the rest of the summer worrying that she was going to be maimed or killed because I hadn't opened my mouth.
But I also didn't want to ruin the relationship that we were finally building.
'Okay,' I said before I could think better of it. 'Just the jump.'
Just the jump.
What an idiot I was.
It wasn't like I was about to swan-dive into a swimming pool, to the polite applause of a small crowd. No, I was about to hurl my body off a jagged cliff, hope that I would avoid the rocks below, and try not to drown before I made it back to the shore.
You know, no pressure or anything.
Nancy jumped ahead of me. That made it worse. At first, I'd thought that if I saw her do it and return safely, I'd feel less nervous about taking the leap myself. I watched as my cousin stripped down to her bathing costume. I didn't know if there was a bite in the air or if it was the anticipation, but she was positively trembling by the time she was done. With the eyes of the crowd on her, Nancy swallowed hard and met my eyes. We shared a moment of mutual respect, understanding, and unparalleled fear.
As she began her ascent of the cliff, I fought against the urge to chase her down and drag her away. Nancy became smaller and smaller as she vanished into the distance, swallowed up by the undergrowth and the darkness. When she reappeared, she was at the lowest jump point. Relief swept through me. Sure, she was still risking her life, but at least it wasn't as high a risk as jumping from the very top. I clutched my hands together and pressed them to my lips, waiting with bated breath like everyone else. A few brutish, thuggish teens jeered, shouting that she should hurry or come back down. The MC of the event announced her name to the group. But I couldn't hear him clearly over the blood pulsing through my ears.
Before I knew it, she'd parted company with the cliff and was sailing through the air in a perfect, graceful dive. She cut through the water effortlessly to raucous cheers and began the swim back as though it was no more serious as wading in a paddling pool.
I wished that I could have been there to greet her, to tell her she was an idiot, but that I was glad that she was safe.
Before Nancy returned to shore, it was my turn.
After I'd shed my clothes down to my swimming costume, my feet moved of their own accord, carrying me from the group. They parted for me like the sea, all of them whispering between themselves. They asked their friends who I was, where I thought I was going, if I'd attended their school. Some people booed as I started my climb to the cliff edge.
'Easy, now,' the MC announced to the crowd through his microphone. 'Beth Bennett is here as a guest of our ever graceful Nancy, who just earned her first hundred points! As a special, one-time only favour, Beth is going to take the jump.'
More boos followed.
The MC interrupted with, 'However! No points will be awarded, and Beth isn't eligible for the rest of Panic. So enjoy the dive, people, because it's the only performance that you'll see from our British guest.'
The walk took mere minutes, but each was a drawn-out eternity. The crowd had settled, reassured because they might get to see me leap to my death if I misjudged the distance between the rocks and the water, but that I wouldn't get any points even if I survived.
The coarse grass itched between my bare toes and I peered down over the edge once I'd arrived, trying my best to judge just how much of a run I'd need to make it out alive. I tried not to think of Will and what he might say if he knew what I was about to do. I pushed my boyfriend far from my mind alongside my friends and family. If I didn't make it, then they'd all be heartbroken, and I would be solely responsible for forcing that pain upon them.
'Hurry it up, Queen Elizabeth!' the horrid boy who'd jeered at Nancy yelled. 'Are you waitin' on a twenty-one gun salute?'
His comments drew laughter from his friends and those around him. Others were too nervous for humour. They were motionless, silent, and transfixed by my proximity to the drop.
I backed up, giving myself far more space to run than I thought I needed. I'd rather over-compensate and land farther out in the water than take a risk and discover that there was a rock I'd not seen waiting to mangle me.
Satisfied that I was as prepared as I Was ever going to be for such a stupid, ridiculous stung, I drew in a deep breath, let it out through my nose, and focused on the horizon. My body took control, throwing me into a sprint, the soft earth giving way beneath my bare feet with each powerful footfall. I drove myself forwards, the adrenalin coursing through my veins and my heart hammering in my chest like a jackhammer. The blood pounded in my ears. It was a ceaseless drum beat, rising to a crescendo that carried me over the edge and into the air.
Then – silence.
Sound disappeared from the world, sucked away like all the air in my lungs. I moved my feet, trying to gain purchase on nothingness. For a moment I was suspended and weightless, and then I was falling fast towards the water. It was too late to manipulate my body into a dive. I'd lost the art of grace and showmanship my cousin had so artfully displayed in her jump. All I could do now was to hit the water feet first without shattering the bones in my legs from the force.
It was like shattering through glass as I plummeted through the surface. Cold and darkness enveloped me, pressing in on all sides, swathing me and trying to drag me down. The waves rolled overhead, and the tide shunted me back and forth. I clawed through the water, kicking my feet beneath me and hoping that the darkness towards which I travelled was the sky overhead. It was impossible to see the stars until finally, thankfully; I burst through the surface and took a loud, grateful gasp of air.
Cheers and applause greeted my return to the world. While I suspected that they'd have made the same noises had I not survived, I was grateful for them. It was only thanks to pure adrenalin that I found the strength to swim back to the land where Nancy was waiting with a towel, my clothes bundled under her arm. As I staggered towards her, I realised just how heavy all my limbs were. I cast a glance back over my shoulder to the cliff where another hapless, foolish teenager was about to attempt the same leap that I'd just taken.
'So,' she said excitedly as she wrapped the towel around my shoulders, 'pretty cool, right?'
'Yeah,' I agreed, 'as long as you make it out alive.'
'Oh, come on,' she laughed. 'What's the point of life without a little risk?'
I was fine with a little risk.
I was fine with a little fun.
Panic was neither of these things.
Panic was dangerous.
Panic was deadly.
As I glanced around the crowd I had to wonder; just how many of these teens would be dead before Panic ended?
I only hoped that Nancy had the power to survive.