Logan's Last Words (edited)

I edited a few things. Would still love more feedback!


I watched horrified. Logan, my sweet Logan, my best friend, held a shot gun level with his father’s face.
“You’ll never have the guts to do it,” were his father’s cutting words, malice oozing from every breath. I hated Victor more in that moment than I ever had. He was hurting someone I love and that was something I could not stand for.
“Don’t listen to him Logan. He’s just trying to save his sorry behind. But you don’t have to kill him Logan,” I said quietly as if Logan and I were the only ones in the room. I pretended we were hanging out in my mom’s living room, like we had a million times before. I pretended we weren’t in a dank and humid basement with my best friend holding a shot gun in his father’s face and there weren’t several Hunters tied up and held against the far wall within my line of sight. I ignored all of that and tried to put my hand on my best friend’s shoulder, but he wouldn’t let me touch him. He looked at me with the most heartbreaking expression I’d ever seen in his ice blue eyes which were now ringed with red, the tears barely contained in his eyes.
“But I do, Harley,” he whispered his voice strained from trying not to cry. The gun had begun to fall a few degrees while we held eye contact, but then Logan quickly raised it back and snapped his head back to facing Victor. He spoke strongly and clearly this time, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were fixed on Victor as he said, “He tried to kill you. You are my best friend. And he tried to kill you. And if I let him go, he will try again. He’s a Hunter. No. He’s their leader. And they all want you dead, Harley. He won’t stop until you are. Until all Underworld creatures are.”
“Harley, don’t be silly girl. You and I both know that my son isn’t man enough to shoot me. Not in the face at least. He’s a coward. He’d shoot me in the back. But he’d never have the balls to shoot me face to face,” Victor said his cruel laughter ringing through the room.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Logan screamed his face tomato red, his eyes bugged out of his skull.
Ian slowly grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me backward, away from the father and son. He pulled me to his chest and whispered in my ear, “Close your eyes. Logan is serious. He’s not leaving until his father is dead.”
I wanted to tell Ian he was wrong, but something stopped me, because I couldn’t honestly say that. That look in Logan’s eyes said he could do it, but the Logan I knew could never. The Logan I knew would never even be here.
Logan aimed the shot gun right between his father eyes. “A few weeks ago I loved you. I loved my Dad,” Logan said slowly, carefully articulating each syllable. “But you are not my Dad. The man I see in front of me is just the liar who tried to kill my best friend because she’s not exactly like him. And he’s afraid of what he doesn’t understand. You are the coward,” he told his father, each word cold as ice.
In that moment time slowed down. I saw something change on Victor’s face. For a small moment he looked like he admired his son and then that look turned to the terrified face of a man about to die and he knows it.
I began to reach forward with an exclamation of “No!” but Ian held me back. He tried to turn me around and bury my face into his chest, but I pushed him away and watched in absolute horror at the scene that unfolded before me.
With a final “God speed,” from Logan’s lips he pulled the trigger. I heard Ian’s soft exclamation of “That’s a lot of blood.” from behind me. But that was a vast understatement at the picture in front of me. Victor’s face was gone as the buck shot from Logan’s gun ripped his face apart. I watched as Victor’s nearly decapitated body fell to the floor, obliterated. The body seemed to be drowning in a pool of its own blood and as badly as I wanted to look away I couldn’t. Until I saw Logan. He staggered backward, away from the bloody mess on the floor. Away from his father’s dead body. He dropped the shotgun from his shaking, blood coated hands.
I rushed forward to him, but stopped short. Logan’s once clean cerulean polo was drenched in blood. Logan merely stared at his hands, which were also covered by the crimson stain. He looked at me with fat tears rolling down his still child like face. “I had to. I had to do it. I did. I had to. I had to do it, Harley.”
“I know. I know, Honey,” I said holding out my hand to him, but I didn’t get to him in time.
With a blood curdling cry Amy rushed at Logan from where she’d been detained by Natasha, who tried rushing after her, but Amy was too fast, fueled by her hate and need for revenge for the man she loved, the man my best friend had just killed. Time slowed down to an almost frame by frame before my eyes as Amy ran. She pulled a knife from her boot and leaped at Logan. I wanted to stop her, but I was petrified. I was concreted where I stood and did nothing as that psycho Hunter sank her knife into my best friend’s back.
It was as if I left my body. I heard myself scream, but I don’t remember telling myself to take in the oxygen to scream. I rushed at her. I summoned all the fire I had in my body and as she pulled the knife out of Logan’s back I pushed her. I felt the fire leave my hands hot as lightning. I incinerated that young girl’s body, but just before she burned she looked at me as if I was doing her a favor. She smiled at me like she had still won. She fell to the ground as a mound of ashes, but I didn’t care. I turned my attention to Logan, who had fallen to his knees with one hand supporting him as he coughed blood onto the floor of that dingy basement. I fell to my knees beside him.
I looked around me desperately for help, but all of my friends were frozen. “Please someone go find a Stitch!” I screamed as Logan lowered himself onto his side.
I saw Ian’s shoes beside me and I looked up at him through tear filled eyes and he whispered those words that I didn’t want to hear, “It’s too late Harley. He’s doesn’t have enough time for a Stitch. He’s too far gone.”
“No! No he isn’t! Please! No!” I screeched. I turned back toward Logan and called to him, “Logan! Logan, look at me!”
Logan slowly turned his head. His lips stained with blood, a mixture of his own and his father’s. He smiled at me for a moment and then he coughed. It was a horrible hacking and wet cough as blood spilled from his lips. He opened to speak and I tried to silence him, but he wouldn’t have it. “Listen to me,” he said his voice weak whisper. “I need to tell you something.”
“You can tell me later on Logan. I promise,” I said ice cold tears running from my eyes.
“I think we both know I won’t have a later on, Harley,” he said with a bitter laugh that turned to another hacking liquid cough. “I need to get this out before it’s too late. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I was just too scared to lose you to ever admit it. But I guess that doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re going to be just fine,” I said pushing his hair out of his face. Then he coughed again, his life blood staining his lips.
Logan’s eyes turned to Ian. “You take care of her. Because if you don’t I swear I will come back and haunt your ass for eternity,” he said trying to sound strong but having to stop repeatedly to cough and wheeze. “I think I’m just gonna take a little nap,” Logan whispered, his eyes closing.
“No Logan! Don’t go to sleep! Stay with me!” I screamed at him, but he didn’t listen. Logan took a pained, rattling breath, his eye lashes fluttering like he was sleeping and then he stopped breathing.
With a pained cry I began to weep. Ian took this as his queue to pull me away, but I fought him. I screamed, “No! No, Ian! He needs me! Logan needs me!”
Ian ignored my frantic pleas and scooped me into his arms, my fists beating at his chest as he tried to soothe my hair. “It’s okay, Love. Everything will be okay. I promise,” he whispered softly as he carried me up the stairs and out of that basement filled with so much blood, pain, and death.

GIVE ME MORE!!! Such anticipation and suspense. Lots of action! Which is what I like. Unfortuneately, you'll never be as action-packed as me. Just joking. (But you won't.) Okay, onto the review. I can find no obvious problems other than a small amount of non-puntuation and non-capatalization. Other than that, you did a good job on this, and give me more so I can have a back story to who these people and weather or not they have superpowers. Here's a GOLD STAR!! Keep writing!

This is very well-written, and I think you have done a good job ensuring that we understand some of the peculiarities of the world that you have created (the introduction of the "Stitch" for example, whose purpose is immediately apparant).

One thing that does bug me is that there are a few sections which are a little cliched. The very beginning seems very typical, and I think if you opened differently, the story would have more pop. The reason for the murder is a little shaky as well--I think it takes more than a simple "you tried to kill my friend" for someone to become hell-bent against someone they loved. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances, something that caused Logan to snap.

The writing in blood I think is not the best concept. If he's dying, and he can hardly speak (or, not at all if he's bothering to write), he isn't going to have the energy to write a lengthy message on the floor, complete with introductions and signing off. It just doesn't seem realistic to me, and it took away from the vividness in the story.

Also I am still confused as to the gender of the speaker. It sounds as though Harley and Logan are romantically involved, from the way the story is written, but Harley is such a masculine name that I am a little turned around.

However. After saying all that, I still think this is very well done. It has very good pacing and flow, and I would say it reads more naturally than I would have expected from the beginning. Very nice!

I watched horrified as Logan, my sweet Logan, my best friend, held a shot gun level with his father’s face.

Okay, opening lines are something I always seem to find myself fussing over. Short, sharp opening lines have the strongest impact. But if you stick a period in there after horrified, and take out ‘as,’ I think you would have a stronger sentence.

were his father’s cutting words, malice oozing from every word.

‘words’ and ‘word’ are obviously pretty similar which makes this sound repetitive. Repetition can be very annoying because it might make you seem like you don’t even have access to a thesaurus. But I think changing ‘word’ to ‘syllable’ might have a similar impact. Just watch out for repetition.

I wanted to say you’re wrong, …

The way this is set up, you should be, “I wanted to say, “You’re wrong.”
However, and this is only a suggestion, but what about saying, “I wanted to tell him he was wrong…”
Of course it’s only a suggestion.



Okay, I had one little issue with this and that’s the fact that you very abruptly throw in the fact that she has these powers. As a short story, this sudden twist just feels like you were searching for some sort of special ending. If this was a part of something larger and had powers prior to this event, this would be far more understandable.

However, I did like the way you wrote your dialogue. It all sounded very pleaded and sad.

Also, I’m not even sure if you know this, but the Clave is a group mentioned in a series of books by Cassandra Clare. So be careful about using other people ideas when you can be a billion times cooler than them with your own names and ideas.

Still, it was definitely a fun read. So

~lilymoore

Thank you so much for all of your critiques! Just to clarify for anyone else who was confused by the speaker's name: Harley is a girl. I know some of this might be a little confusing, like her powers, but this was part of something bigger and her powers had already been established. As for Harley and Logan's relationship, just a little back ground info on them, they'd been best friend their entire lives and Logan is completely in love with Harley and she had no idea, because she was too busy focusing on Ian, her boyfriend, to ever notice. Hope that clears up some of the confusion.

I like this. I like this a lot. You really have a grasp for action and drama! I was totally gripped, well done (Logan isn't really dead right?!?!)

One thing i would say was that it happened all very quickly, (but then again that may simply be because I like to spend ages on developing scenes, which can be very annoying)and the imagery was quite linear. Add more smells, sounds, tastes, and straight away it'll feel (to me at least) more powerful.

I think you're fantastic

Okay, so this is definitely much better following a little tweaking.

One thing that I have been mulling over is that I don't feel very invested in the characters. I think you have intended for this to be a scene in a larger work, correct? Rather than a stand alone piece? Maybe you could include a little character development (or point us in the direction of it, if you've already posted it)? Because as much as I absolutely love this scene (did I mention how much it has improved???), I am curious if some of the characters are staying true to their personalities.

Another picky detail that I want to point out is Ian's exclamation, which doesn't sit well with me. I don't imagine that, when faced with someone whose face has been blown off, I would be as verbose as he is. Maybe a simple cry of horror would be sufficient =)

Really, this is superb! I love the way you write!!!!

Hi there Chequita. I’m here ‘cause, well, you ask!

Okay, it’s a little hard, without the original, to make a lot of comparisons, and I’m working mostly off of my first review, so bare with me. ^^

The first thing I want to congratulate you on finding, actually probably a better name for your bad guys. And after reading what you said in your comment underneath mine, I definitely understand more now that you’ve mentioned that this isn’t a stand alone piece. That probably would have been something worth mentioning at the very beginning. It would have definitely helped out everyone who read it.

The only thing, actually, that I really want to point out, otherwise, is that you need to be careful of repetition. There were several instances that I spotted where the same words – and I’m not talking about things like ‘and’ and ‘the’ – but words like ‘that’ and ‘back.’ It can make your sentences seem awkward. Repetition is just one of those things everyone should be careful of because it can drag a story down. So always, always, always watch out for this!

Otherwise, the improvements are great! Thanks for asking me to take second look!

~lilymoore