Witch in Hiding (#1 in the Witches Trilogy) (EDITING)

Eighteen: End-life Crisis

Let me just say that I am not someone who scares easily. I don't cry when I break bones, and I punched a clown at a haunted house aged nine. But falling off a four-story roof? I think that qualifies as a time when anyone would be pretty freaking terrified.

Time seems to slow. Maybe because my heart is racing so fast, the anticipation of impact playing over and over. I can't see, I can't hear, I can't move. I'm a statue falling straight down to my death. Doesn't matter if I don't cry over broken bones—I will shatter on impact. Is this what it feels like to be buried alive? I'm screaming in my head, screaming and cursing and crying and panicking, but it doesn't matter because I'm going to break I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm going to die.

Blindly, I try and grab anything outside to anchor myself to, but either nothing's strong enough or my powers aren't working like they should. I can't focus. I can't breathe.

Fear wails like a siren, crowding out anything else. My lungs constrict. I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm going to die.

I'm a witch. I'm one of the most powerful magical creatures in the world, and I am going to die.

What can I do? Move stuff around? Make it rain? Turn invisible? None of that matters—none of that freaking matters, because it won't get me out. If Jess had taught me to phase through things, maybe, but then I'd still be falling. Falling. Falling. Why won't this goddamn thing just hit and end it, already?

Vera would figure out a way to get out, I think bitterly, Vera would never have gotten pushed off the roof in the first place. Vera... Mom... Dad...

A loud zap. Something cracks. I am jerked in the air, tossed aside. Something flashes. There's a wrenching feeling in my gut. A breath of stasis. And then nothing.