Worst Impressions

Amazon Prime Video; Panic - Bonus Chapter

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.