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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"You aren't seriously considering this?"

Vincent shrugged. "Who isn't seriously considering this?"

Cooper buried his face in his hands. The din of the cafeteria drowned out the white noise in his head—a sort of high-pitched whine that had grown progressively worse as he contemplated his best friend's idiocy. "It's suicide," he said finally, numb.

"You know what else is suicide?" Vincent tossed aside the rest of his burger. "Staying in this godforsaken town."

"Vincent," Cooper begged as his best friend pushed away from the table, his lunch tray in hand. "Two people died last year. Panic is dangerous."

Vincent sauntered to the back of the cafeteria and dumped the contents of his tray, humming softly under his breath. He wasn't taking the conversation seriously. Not by a long shot. "So?"

Cooper slammed his tray down on the dish rack and threw up his hands. "Fine. Fine. If you want to enter a suicidal competition to try and win some cash, go ahead. Go right ahead."

Muttering darkly under his breath, Cooper stormed out of the cafeteria. Vincent trotted after him, his footsteps surprisingly light for someone so large. "Coop," he complained. A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. "Wait. Stop."

Cooper sighed and drew up short. They were somewhere between the sophomore stretch of lockers and the gymnasium. Two girls—juniors who he recognized from advanced cell biology—watched them with open curiosity. The girl on the left flushed as their eyes met. Her friend merely smiled, leaned over to whisper in the other girl's ear, and then they were gone.

The empty hall rang with the sound of their laughter.

Go ahead and laugh. Next year, you'll be the ones with the targets on your back.

"I know you're against it," Vincent began, leaning against the row of nearby lockers. "But—"

"Against it?" Cooper repeated, aghast. He ran a hand through his hair—one, two, three. "I'm against...kicking puppies." And skinning cats. "This? This is so much worse."

And it was so much worse. Panic—a game invented by a group of daredevil seniors, years and years ago—had become a sort of tradition for the graduates of Carp, Texas. Seniors would spend the summer daring one another to perform a series of tasks, like jumping from the town's local waterfall, or stealing the mascot's uniform from the locker room, or ringing the clock tower's bell.

But things were different now. The challenges had gotten a lot harder over the years—and the stakes, higher. It wasn't just about tradition. Not anymore.

Now, it was all about the money. 

Vincent bit his bottom lip, his eyes on his shoes. "Panic is my ticket out of here."

Cooper blew out a long breath. "There has to be another way."

"There isn't." Vincent sounded bitter now. When he looked up, his eyes were dark—shuttered. "I'm stuck here, Coop. You aren't. You've got that scholarship, and Calla..." He fumbled over her name. "Calla isn't going to stick around, either. Both of you get to skip town and never look back. You don't need the game. And you don't need the cash. Not like I do."

Regret tore through Cooper's chest. If you want to enter a suicidal competition to try and win some cash, go ahead, he'd said. But it wasn't just "some cash"; the winner of Panic got to take home fifty thousand dollars.

And fifty thousand dollars could change everything. 

"What about the recruiters?" Cooper wracked his brain for a solution—any solution that didn't involve his best friend throwing down the gauntlet. "You're the best football player this town has ever seen—"

Vincent made an impatient noise in the back of his throat. "You think recruiters care about some small-time quarterback in Nowheresville?" He laughed, but there was no humor to it. "I've got no offers. And I can't afford to just move out. My old man isn't going to pay for tuition." His voice broke. "This is the end of the road for me."

Cooper braced his back against the lockers and closed his eyes. "It's not fair."

Not fair. Not fair. Not—

"I'm happy you got that scholarship offer," Vincent said suddenly. "I'm not bitter about it, if that's what you're thinking. One of us has to get out of this hellhole, right?" He pushed off the lockers and shoved his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants.

"Vincent," Cooper started. But Vincent merely shook his head, mumbled something about class, and ambled down the hall, his shoulders hunched. Cooper watched him go, throat tight. They'd been to hell and back together—being kidnapped and terrorized by a serial killer had certainly left its mark—but they'd survived. 

And now random circumstance threatened to tear them apart.

"Crap," he muttered, burying his hands in his hair.

"You'll be bald by thirty," a familiar voice drawled—dangerously close to his ear.

"Gah!" Cooper leapt away from the wall, his heart flying out of his chest. Calla smirked at him, her black eyes dancing as she braced her hip against a locker that had seen better days. Cooper scowled at her. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"If I was trying to kill you," she said calmly, crossing her arms, "you would definitely know."

"Psychopath." Cooper took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. "Calla..."

"Do you have good news?" she asked mildly.

"I—what?" He cleared his throat. "Uh...no. It's bad news, actually. Really bad."

"What? Did you stub your toe again?"

"Vincent's going to do it," he blurted, before she could derail the conversation any further. "He's signing up for Panic."

She went still. Utterly still. She reminded him of the concrete statues in the cemetery—cold and hard, like granite. "What did you just say?"

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, he thought, suddenly nervous. "Well—"

"That was a rhetorical question," she snapped, shoving away from the lockers.

Cooper raised his hands in a placating gesture—the way one might try to sooth a rabid dog. "Let's not...uh, panic—"

She grabbed him by his shirtfront. "I am not in the mood for your crappy puns, Cooper Daniels."

He swallowed. Her face was very close to his; she smelled like spearmint and...something else. Something uniquely her. "Alright," he said weakly. "No more crappy puns."

Calla shoved him aside. "We can't let him do this," she muttered.

Cooper sighed. "Look. I don't like it, either. I tried to talk him out of it. But..." He flinched at her venomous glare. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" she asked, baring her teeth in what probably could have passed for a smile on anyone else.

"Like you're about to take a knife to my back and sever my spinal cord."

She laughed. A low, dark sound. "Don't be silly. I never kill the same way twice."

"Can we focus?" he demanded, ignoring the chill that skittered down his spine at her words. With Calla, he had to ignore a lot. Her dark humor came with the territory.

Dark humor? That's the understatement of the century...

She flicked the end of her ponytail over her shoulder. "Talk fast, then. Third period is almost over. And graduation is next week." She folded her arms. "If we're going to do something about this, we have to do it fast."

Cooper resisted the urge to run his hands back through his hair. He glanced over his shoulder, but the hall was still empty. Not for long, he thought. "We might not like it, but Panic might be Vincent's only option."

"Panic isn't an option. We have to stop him."

"Okay. How? What are we supposed to do?" Cooper hissed, exasperated. "Tie him to a chair for the rest of the summer?"

She paused, thoughtful. "That can be arranged."

"No." He made a slashing gesture with his arm. "No more tricks. No more schemes. No more games. Vincent is going to do what he wants to do." 

Her eyes narrowed in that way they always did right before an outburst. He shook his head. "Calla. No. We already have one foot out the door. But Vincent? Without an athletic scholarship, he's stuck here after graduation. With his dad." Calla's expression hardened at that. "It'll kill him, Calla. If we leave this town, and he has to stay behind...it'll kill him."

She wandered over to the opposite wall, putting some distance between them. Her eyes were hooded, unreadable. Then again, she'd always been unreadable.

"He's got a good chance," Cooper said, perhaps too low for her to hear. "He's strong. And fast—"

"You said no more tricks," she mused, tracing the lines in the wall with her fingertips. "No more schemes. No more games." She looked at him over her shoulder. "But that's what Panic is. A game. A very dangerous game."

Cooper looked at her, dread curling in the pit of his stomach. "Oh, God. You have a look on your face."

"Is it my I sever spinal cords look?" 

"No." He closed his eyes. "It's your I have a really terrible plan look."

He heard her soft snort. "I don't have terrible plans. You're delusional."

"Or exceptionally observant."

He opened his eyes and found her smiling at him—a cold, empty smile. "Perhaps."

Cooper's heart stuttered. Danger, his instincts warned him. There's danger nearby.

Of course there was danger nearby. Befriending Calla Parker hadn't been without its hazards. But he'd long learned to silence the voice in his head.

"If Vincent is going to play the game," she started slowly, tapping a finger against her chin, "then we need to ensure he wins."

The space between them seemed to grow and grow and grow—until it felt like they were standing at opposite ends of a great chasm. "And how do you suppose we do that?"

For a moment, they just watched one another. And then, slowly, she smiled.

# # #

"You came."

Vincent was smiling at her, his back braced against an unfamiliar silver pickup truck. Near the river's shore, someone—or, more likely, multiple someones—had constructed a massive bonfire. Music blasted from a nearby speaker, drowning out the chatter of their classmates, who'd gathered in the dead of night (and in the wilderness, no less) to celebrate the end of an era.

The summer had started—and now, so too would the game.

Calla approached Vincent at a leisurely pace, her hands clasped behind her back. "I did. For you. You're insane, by the way—"

Vincent peeled away from the truck and swept her up in an embrace. The world spun at a dizzying speed. And then her feet were back on solid ground, and Vincent's arms were wrapped around her waist. He felt warm and familiar—and fragile. She remembered how easily he'd bled that night at the house of horrors.

He wasn't the only one who bled that night. You almost died. And Cooper broke bones. I guess time really does heal all wounds.

"I'm not made of glass, you know," he said, echoing her thoughts. But his voice was light. He ran his index finger along her jaw, lighting her skin on fire. She had to crane her neck back to see him properly, his face painted with shadows. "I can do this."

His voice was firm. But there was an uncertainty there, in his eyes. An uncertainty he didn't want to acknowledge.

She braced her cheek against his chest. His heartbeat pounded out a steady rhythm against her skin. For a moment—just a moment—she wondered what it might feel like, to listen to his heart stutter and fade and stop altogether.

The thought made her own pulse leap with morbid anticipation. Lock it down, she scolded herself, shoving aside the dark impulse.

"I know you can do this," she murmured. "But you don't have to do this alone."

He stiffened beneath her. "Calla—"

"I'm not going to try and stop you." She leaned back, peering into his shadowed eyes. "But that means you can't try to stop me, either."

He shook his head, slowly. "It's too—"

"Dangerous?" a voice asked over her shoulder. "Actually, dangerous is getting kidnapped by a lovestruck psycho. Not speaking from experience, or anything. Purely hypothetical."

Calla untangled herself from Vincent. Cooper materialized out of the darkness and joined them by the truck, his hands shoved in his pockets. He looked uncomfortable in jeans and a hoodie—uncomfortable, but determined.

Vincent took her hand. As if he couldn't bear not to touch her, at least in some way. "You're not doing this," he said, jaw set. "Either of you."

"Wow. Very persuasive." Cooper clapped him on the shoulder. "You should be a lawyer."

Vincent rounded on her. "Calla, please. I know I shrugged it off before, but...you shouldn't do this. I have to. I don't have a choice."

"Neither do we." She squeezed his hand. "We're doing this for you, dumbass. So we can get you out of this shitty little town."

Cooper shrugged. "She's right. If there's a way to help you, we'll do it. But there's not much we can do from the sidelines." He inclined his head toward the bluffs, where sheets of water cascaded into the river. "So. We make the jump. Game on."

We make the jump. Calla's eyes wandered to the bluffs, to the powerful rush of water pounding into the river below. Every contestant had to make the leap in order to qualify for the game. The safest bet would be to jump from the lowest bluff—an easy enough drop. But there were higher bluffs, with riskier drops, for the bravest of them.

Her eyes drifted to the top of the waterfall. Suicide Leap.

The greater the risk, she mused, the greater the reward.

Vincent blew out a frustrated breath. "I'm not going to change your minds. Am I?"

Calla tore her eyes away from the waterfall. Cooper did the same. "No," they said in unison.

Cooper smirked as Vincent stalked off, presumably to gather further instructions from Mike—this year's emcee. His smile fell as he glanced back at her. "Calla?"

"What?"

"Um. What, exactly, is your plan?"

She leaned back against the truck and crossed her arms. Familiar faces wandered in and out of the firelight—Stephanie Brighton, Mike and Blake Richardson, Venus Upton. Tom Sahein hovered in the shadows, his camera in hand. Even Gareth Walker had made an appearance; he stood near the bonfire, a broad smile on his face and a beer in hand.

Gareth Walker. Just another kid with big dreams who never left town. And now those dreams of his are dead and gone. 

"Vincent wins," she said bluntly. "No matter the cost."

Cooper considered her. And then, very quietly, he said, "Two kids died last year. They said it was an accident."

She heard the implication in his tone. "Yes. Two kids died." She pinned him with a cool stare. "And if anyone gets in Vincent's way, two more kids will die this year."

"Just two?" Cooper asked, his voice like acid. But there was a sort of resigned horror in his eyes.

He already knew her answer.

"No matter the cost," she repeated.

"Alright," Vincent called, trotting back over to the truck. "It's time to—is everything okay?" he asked, pulling up short. His eyes darted between their tense faces.

"Everything is fine," Cooper said flatly, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Let's go."

# # #

A warm breeze lifted Cooper's hair, drying the sweat that had gathered at the nape of his neck.

No matter the cost.

He closed his eyes. He'd stripped off his hoodie and jeans, leaving his skin exposed to the elements—exposed. That was precisely how he felt in thus moment. His heart hammered away in his chest, threatening to burst free.

"Contestant." Mike Richardson's voice blared across the water, amplified by a megaphone that he'd stolen from the boy's locker room during their junior year. "State your name."

The dull roar of the waterfall hummed beneath the soles of his feet. Vincent had already made the leap; Cooper watched as he stumbled onto the rocky shore below. A rush of bodies enveloped him, offering him towels and a six-pack of beer.

"Cooper Daniels," he called, his voice unsteady. 

He was one of only two remaining players who had yet to make the jump; everyone else had already taken their "leap of faith". Vincent had been the twenty-first; Cooper would be the twenty-second. 

While most of the other players had opted to jump from the lowest bluff, a handful of showoffs—Blake Richardson among them—had dared to take it a step further, scaling the rocky cliff face to take on the High Jump. The risk was worth the reward, as those few had walked away with an extra twenty-five points added to their score.

Vincent, of course, had not been impressed. So he'd chosen a riskier path.

This path.

"Cooper Daniels, everybody," Mike repeated. His classmates cheered below. "Uh, Coop? You do realize you're standing on Suicide Leap, right?"

Cooper swallowed thickly. Suicide Leap had been aptly named. He felt almost dizzy as he stared down at the water far, far below. Even from this distance, he could see dark spots in the water, at the base of the falls—dark spots that he knew to be sharp rocks. 

Suicide Leap is worth a hundred extra points, Vincent had told him on the way up here, his eyes glittering with determination. I'm going for it. But you don't have to. You can turn back.

"You don't have to do this," Calla said, echoing his thoughts. 

Cooper didn't bother turning around. "Yes. I do," he said, balling his hands into fists. 

If Vincent can do this, so can I.

Calla sighed. "Is it really worth it?"

He heard her approach—felt her presence at his back. And still, he didn't turn. "It is," he said finally. "We're in this together, remember?"

She stepped up to his side. Moonlight painted her skin alabaster, silvering her unbound hair. She looked like a vengeful river spirit, come to drown them all.

"Together," she repeated, the words lacking any real infliction. "After all this time...I suppose so."

Cooper let out a shaky breath. He felt light as a feather—but that was probably the adrenaline. "See you at the bottom," he managed.

As he ran toward the cliff's edge, he thought he heard her say, I'll be right behind you. But he couldn't be sure. Not with the wind in his hair and the rush of water at his feet, and then all the world falling around him, suspended in time.

No matter the cost, he thought, just before the hit the water.