Young Writers Society

It was dark, the full moon being her only beacon of light. Luxe’s long, wavy black hair hung loose around her shoulders and she wore a pair of ripped jeans with a black leather jacket. Her feet carried her silently through the woods as she picked her way through downed tree branches and shrubs, even though her dark, military styled boots were heavy. She was surrounded by tall, thick Maple trees and the brittle yellow leaves fell like snow around her.
She heard a low growl from behind and spun around to find herself face to face with a werewolf. It stood over nine feet tall and was thickly muscled underneath its matted, shaggy grey fur. It had razor sharp claws were at least a couple inches long and Luxe could just see the tips of sharp, white fangs hiding in its mouth.
The werewolf let out a bloodcurdling howl that only made Luxe smile. She reached down to her belt and drew out a long, silver dagger from its sheath. The werewolf swung his paw at her but Luxe took a quick step causing its claws to grab nothing but air. The werewolf attacked again this time raking his claws down Luxe’s cheek and knocking her to her back, the blade landing a few feet behind her. Luxe jumped up quickly and she used her mind to reach deep into her core and grasp her power, like she had been trained to do.
The werewolf lunged at her but Luxe somersaulted out of the way, sticky blood trailing down the side of her face. The werewolf howled in frustration and Luxe launched herself at it. She did a roundhouse kick that hit the werewolf in the jaw with enough force to snap its neck. The werewolf’s body fell limp to the damp grass; it’s lifeless, yellow eyes gazing back at her.








Luxe woke with a start at the feel of someone roughly shaking her shoulder. She could hear the sound of the ocean behind her, the waves slapping against the shore, and there was a strong smell of salt that seemed familiar to Luxe.
“Miss. Miss are you alright?” a gruff male voice asked, as he continued to shake her shoulders.
Luxe couldn’t make out who the man was and it took a couple of blinks for the haziness to disperse. “Where am I?” she asked the police officer, her voice rough and hoarse.
“You’re at the beach,” the police officer answered helping Luxe into a sitting position. His police cruiser sat a couple feet away in the parking lot, it’s flashing lights casting eerie shadows into the night sky. “In White Rock…” The cop continued when Luxe didn’t respond.
“That’s impossible!” Luxe protested. “I don’t even live in British Columbia! In fact the last thing I remember is being at home… in Calgary!”
The cop gave a weary sigh, “What kind of drugs did you take?”
“I didn’t take any drugs,” Luxe replied before the cop grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet. “Let go of me!” she cried as he tried to drag her to his car.
“Look kid I don’t have time for fucking games, if you’re not going to tell me the truth than I’ll take you down to the station where they can deal with you.”
Luxe dug her heels into the sand, “I am telling the truth asshole, now get your hands off me!”
The cop pulled out his gun and held it in front of her, causing Luxe’s heart to stop. “I don’t have time for this. Now get in the fucking car.”
“No!” Luxe cried out, ripping her arms out of his grasp. He came towards her and Luxe pushed hard against his chest. She gasped as he flew through the air, landing face down on the windshield of his car. She gave a shudder as she saw scarlet red blood dribble out of his mouth and down the smashed windshield.
She let out a shaky breath and glanced down at her hands, when she heard someone clapping from behind. Luxe spun around to see three people walking towards her from out of the shadows. They stopped a few feet away from her and with the streetlights beaming down on them she was able to get a good look at them.
The woman in the middle was beautiful. Her bright blonde hair had been done in a single braid that hung across her right shoulder. She had a finely sculpted face with high cheekbones, full lips, and bright blue eyes. She wore a low cut red dress that ended at her knees, the same ending point as her black boots.
The two men on the other side of her were identical, with dark skin, bald heads, and the same black on black suit. They had a serious expression on their faces and dark, unrevealing eyes that made Luxe nervous.
“I have to say, I’m quite impressed,” the woman said, her voice low and seductive.
“Who are you?” Luxe demanded.
“My name is Arianna. And this,” she replied, holding her hands out on either side of her, “is Kale and Jakob. And you, are Luxe.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Oh I know a lot about you sweetie; we’ve been following you for a long time.”
“Why? Why me?” Luxe asked cautiously.
“I think you know why, “Arianna replied taking a few steps closer. “We had to make sure you were one of us.”
“One of you?”
“Fey,” Arianna answered. “People with powers.”
“People don’t have powers.”
“Look at what you just did to that cop Luxe.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Luxe replied hastily, not daring to turn around at the damage she had done.
“Don’t worry about it,” Arianna said waving it off as if it were nothing more than a broken vase she hadn’t really liked to begin with. “He wasn’t a very good cop, treated people like shit, beat his wife. But what you did was part of your power.”
“No,” Luxe said taking a step back. “That was adrenaline, not… powers.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Look I’m not sure what your deal is lady, but I’m not going to stay here and listen to your crazy talk,” Luxe said turning around, because in truth she didn’t believe that what she had just done was only adrenaline.
“I think it’d be in your best interest to stay,” Arianna replied. It wasn’t a threat but Luxe heard the firmness in her tone.
“Or what, you’re going to stop me?” Luxe asked turning back around.
“Actually, I am,” Arianna replied as she snapped her fingers.
Luxe’s unconscious body crumpled to the sand and Arianna bent down in front of her, brushing a lock of Luxe’s dark hair off her face. “Take her to the car.”
Jakob strolled over and lifted Luxe into his arms before following Arianna over to her sleek black limo.

Luxe woke up lying in a small bed, in a white walled room, with Arianna sitting in a chair next to her.
“Oh god, you’re real?” Luxe asked and Arianna only flashed her a smile. “I was hoping it had all just been a dream."
“Sorry sweetheart, but this nightmare is a reality,” Arianna replied sweetly.
Luxe groaned and rested her head in her hands before something flickered in her mind. “Wait, how’d you do that? Knock me out I mean.”
Arianna gave a short laugh. “It’s one of my powers.” Luxe gave her a puzzled look. “Maybe I should start from the beginning.”
“That would be a good idea,” Luxe replied.
“You’re not human Luxe,” Arianna replied. “Well you’re partly human, but you’re mostly Fey.”
“Fey? Are you telling me I’m going to turn into a tiny person with wings, prancing around granting peoples wishes with my magic wand?”
Arianna let out a long laugh that was sickly sweet. “Oh, it’s been a long time since I laughed that hard. But to answer your question, no, you’re not going to turn into a faerie. Fey is your specie. Now like humans there are many different types. I for instance am a Beta, the second most powerful Fey. I can communicate through the mind and even control through the mind, although it’s much easier with humans than Fey’s.”
“Why?”
“Fey’s minds are harder to breach; it takes a lot of energy to get into it, whereas with humans it’s relatively simple, and don’t forget the ability to knock people out. Next is an Omega. Omega’s have an incredible sense of smell, strength, hearing, sight, and the ability to create razor sharp claws and fangs.”
“Like a werewolf?”
“Exactly. Only Omega’s don’t turn into grotesque, hairy monsters like werewolves do,” Arianna responded. “There are many other but you’ll learn of them eventually.”
“And me?” Luxe asked, more out of curiosity than anything else. “What am I?”
“You’re an Alpha,” Arianna answered calmly. “The most powerful of us all.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Luxe protested leaping out of the bed. “And how’d you know I was even Fey?”
“Do you remember the bank robbery in Edmonton last year?” Arianna asked, and Luxe’s face fell. “You were one of the hostages if I remember correctly.” Luxe numbly nodded her head, not daring to speak. “Well so was I,” Arianna continued. “Just bad timing on my part.”
“I don’t understand…”
“You see once the whole hostage thing went down I was just going to use my power to get the bad guys to let us go and give themselves up to the police, especially when he grabbed you. I tried to get into you mind to tell you to stop fighting him but I couldn’t get into your mind and that’s when I realized you were one of us. But it was when you caused him to suffocate, from nothing, that I really saw how powerfully you were. All you did was touch his throat and he died.”
“I didn’t mean to do that to him,” Luxe responded and she became aware of how now two people’s deaths were on her hands.
“I know, just like you didn’t mean to kill that cop. But here’s the thing about Alpha’s, they are an extremely rare commodity; a small diamond amongst hundreds of rubies. There are only a handful of Alpha’s that we know of in our history. The last one was nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.”
Luxe sat down on the edge of the bed, face to face with Arianna. “What kind of powers do I have?”
“Virtually all of them,” Arianna said walking to the door. “Babe you can do it all,” and with that she left, leaving Luxe staring after her.

Hi, this is a promising start, when the time comes for the editing, here are my two cents. It's all mainly to do with the logistics of some situations and the prose tempo.

“Her feet carried her silently through the woods as she picked her way through downed tree branches and shrubs, even though her dark, military styled boots were heavy” - I think that there are two descriptions here playing the same role: her feet carrying her silently; and her picking her way. You can get the same effect by using only one, and saving the other for another scene.
- In spite of the heaviness of her military boots she picked her way silently through downed tree branches and shrubs

“It had razor sharp claws were at least a couple inches long and Luxe could just see the tips of sharp, white fangs hiding in its mouth.” – Its razor sharp claws were at least a couple inches long and Luxe could just see the tips of sharp, white fangs showing through the parted lips.

The first part of the fight scene:
“The werewolf let out a bloodcurdling howl that only made Luxe smile. She reached down to her belt and drew out a long, silver dagger from its sheath. The werewolf swung his paw at her but Luxe took a quick step causing its claws to grab nothing but air. The werewolf attacked again this time raking his claws down Luxe’s cheek and knocking her to her back, the blade landing a few feet behind her. Luxe jumped up quickly and she used her mind to reach deep into her core and grasp her power, like she had been trained to do.”

1. This is where I think you should work on making the prose a bit tighter. When describing emotions, thoughts, scenery, and slow moments like lovemaking or lazy dialogues, you can let the prose expand and lose momentum. To the contrary, when describing fights and battles, you can only make us feel the urgency if you do not let up the adrenaline.
2. The sentences should be parts of an interconnected whole, unless we have a specifically mentioned case of splintered perceptions like a fight in complete darkness, or in a fog, or the protagonist has just been smacked on the head or has lost a gallon of blood and a leg. So, in this case:
- Luxe smiles self-confidently, and yet almost loses her face a second later. There’s a contradiction here which you the author must resolve without keeping the reader waiting for too long. Either the creature is faster than normal, or she is an over-confident, inexperienced boobie. Spell it out, maybe through her thoughts as she looks at the dead critter.
- She doesn’t lazily reach down and draw out a dagger, she snatches it out. Or she first fumbles a bit. But since she appears to be tracking the critter in the first place, I think the dagger should be in her hand by now.
- If the dagger falls a few feet away, this is an impersonal description of someone taking down the event. Through her dazed perceptions in that moment, I think what matters is not the feet, yards or inches, but whether its within reach or not.
- Possible example: “She dodged a swing of the creature’s right paw but couldn’t dodge the other one. Sharp claws raked across her cheek, sending her sprawling, the dagger flashing once in the moonlight before falling to the ground somewhere out of reach. Luxe rolled away just as the werewolf’s foot crashed into the grass where her head had been a moment ago. Training took over: as she jumped to her feet, she felt her mind recover from the shock and reach the hidden core of power.” Etc.

“Luxe woke with a start at the feel of someone roughly shaking her shoulder. She could hear the sound of the ocean behind her, the waves slapping against the shore, and there was a strong smell of salt that seemed familiar to Luxe.”- replacing ‘at the feel’ with ‘as’ and changing tenses accordingly; unless she slept upright like a horse, the ocean behind her would be below her back, i.e. on the ground, or in the air above her, if she was face down, only if she was on her side with her back to the sea would this work, but that would have to be spelled out. So, I suggest ‘somewhere very close’ instead of ‘behind her’, and stop the sentence with ‘smell of salt.’

By the way, since it’s night, you can add a slight chill to her sensations.
The jump from waking up in a daze to instantly associating White Rock with British Columbia is brain-shuttering.
Then the scene quickly degenerates, the cop suddenly becomes a foul mouthed psychotic who waves his gun at kids and even when he finds them out cold in a suspected drug-induced coma he will only take them to the station if they refuse to admit his suspicions, if they do – then apparently he will just leave them alone and be on his way. I think you have to tweak this scene, which is necessary so that the girl can show off her powers to us the readers, but still, some changes are necessary.

“She gasped as he flew through the air, landing face down on the windshield of his car. She gave a shudder as she saw scarlet red blood dribble out of his mouth and down the smashed windshield. She let out a shaky breath and glanced down at her hands, when she heard someone clapping from behind.” – here again, her shudder and her shaky breath are both describing the same thing. Conserve resources: use only what you have to. Again this is a battle scene, again I vote that you contract the descriptions. By the way, if he lands face down, we do not see where the red blood is dribbling from. It’s night anyway, and blood is red by default, so I think just ‘blood’ will suffice, or “drops of dark liquid. Blood, she realized.” But since she pushed at his chest, he should land with his back on the windshield, unless she sends him spinning, then you spell it out.
Possible example: “She gasped as he flew through the air and smashed into the police cruiser's windshield. Blood sprouted from his mouth and nose. He didn’t move. Luxe let out a shaky breath and as glanced down with amazement at her hands, she heard someone behind her clapping.

As the three figures approach, streetlights appear. Are we still on the beach, or on an alley parallel to the beach? You need the streetlights, unless you use the car’s headlights to show the newcomers, so if you stay with the streetlights, (and anyway, the car is probably not parked at the beach), you have to let the cop drag her or walk her from the beach and to the street, before he starts foaming at the mouth.

If she notices the beauty of the woman, in spite of her adrenaline of not knowing where she is and why and having just sent an abusive cop sailing through the air, than to suspend disbelief you have to spell this out as well, like “in spite of her adrenaline…” I think the woman is still too far off for the bright blue eyes. That should come a bit later, when she’s nearer.

How does Luxe know the cop is dead? Unless his head is at an awkward angle or something. Either show on obvious sign of his death, or make her ask the woman “is he dead? I didn’t mean to…”

When Arianna brushed the lock of hair from Luxe’s face, she does this for a reason, unless she’s just a compulsive-obsessive who has a thing for brushing dust from people’s suits while they talk. The reason is probably either her liking the girl, or her wanting to take another look at her face before she’s carried off. So either give her a mysterious smile while she does this, or have her mutter something along the lines how lovely the face is, or how she wished the girl hadn’t made her do this.

Between the limo and the waking up in a bed, I suggest putting three stars - *** - to prepare the reader for the scene shift.

Luxe groaned and rested her head in her hands – spell out that she sat up abruptly or something, otherwise she’s rather resting her hands on her head.

OK, enough from me, you know now the type of things I dwell on and the possible way to reshuffle the structure, from my point of view that is. Good luck with the story. What are you planning it to be, anyway: a novella? A novel? A long short story?