Logan Clark knew the girl with long brown hair could hear the three boys.

The left side of her face appeared flattened, maybe from a birth defect, Logan thought as he watched the boys use their hands to push and contort their faces. They were laughing.

"Not funny," Logan said as they teased the girl, who was small, almost tiny for a teenager.

There were only six of them in the lunchroom that hot day in July when he stuck up for the girl at the NeuroRehab Center in Austin, Texas.

Some kids were there because of serious brain injuries. Some were there for behavioral issues.

Logan was there for both — and by court order.

Read more: Sparks Middle School shooting: As survivors graduate high school, they reflect on horrific day

On Dec. 7, 2016, a Washoe County School District police officer shot Logan in the chest after Logan waved two knives in a crowd of students and staff at Hug High School.

Police said the 14-year-old freshman was advancing on the officer and did not follow commands to drop the knives. In cellphone videos taken by students, Logan appears frantic.

Now, two years after the shooting, Logan lives with his brother, Devin, and his grandmother, Nancy Pitchford, in government-subsidized housing less than two miles from Hug High.

It's a modest but immaculate apartment except for Logan's messy room.

Logan awkwardly leans against the back of a chair where his grandmother sits. When he does sit down next to his brother, he slumps on the couch.

"It's still hard," Logan said of his life. He's now 16.

"I can't," he often says when asked questions.

“It’s over,” he said when asked about what’s next. He says it almost half joking, but there is seriousness in his words.

For Logan there are few answers to most questions.

He rarely says more than two or three words at a time. He's quiet as his brother and grandmother try to fill in the blanks of the last two years.

But with one question he doesn't struggle.

He doesn't hesitate when asked why he wanted those boys to stop laughing at the girl in the rehab center.

"I got problems, too."

Logan faces years, maybe a lifetime, of therapy — the repercussions of a stroke that cut blood flow to his brain, depriving it of oxygen, after he was shot.

On that day and since, Logan has nearly died five times. He has had to be resuscitated several times after his heart stopped, including just months ago when he had a massive seizure during his four-month sentence at the rehab center in Texas.

His mother and grandmother think the seizures — he has had three — are caused by the metal plate in his head.

The plate, put in during brain surgery at Renown Regional Medical Center in April, replaces the part of his skull removed two years ago.

After Logan was shot, part of his lung was removed and Logan was put on life support. He had a massive stroke and spent weeks in the intensive care unit. He developed an infection. His brain swelled and doctors removed part of his skull to reduce the pressure.

Now, back in his grandmother's house, Logan listens to books on his iPad and keeps alphabet flash cards in his bedroom.

He can't read.

He can’t write.

He can't tie his own shoes.

He gets confused.

And he is forever branded as the kid who was shot by a school police officer at Hug.

Even before the shooting, Logan hadn't had an easy childhood. His grandmother has custody, and his younger sister lives with an aunt in California.

There were times the three kids lived with their mom in a motel. Their father, who has had a string of legal problems including domestic violence charges, has been in and out of their lives.

When Logan started his freshman year at Hug High, he had already spent time in juvenile detention for shoplifting and still wore an ankle monitor.

Logan's family says the school district provided no support or transition plan when Logan left juvenile detention and returned to school.

They say Logan was bullied at Hug. They say they reported the bullying to the school district but nothing was done.

The day he brought knives to school, Logan said, he planned to defend himself because some older students had threatened him.

"No one talks about what happened before that day," Pitchford said.

After Logan was shot, outspoken criminal defense attorney David Houston took his case. Houston told the RGJ in 2016 that Logan was going to be “jumped” or beaten by five other students.

He said the district didn’t take reports of bullying seriously.

The district called Houston’s comments “inappropriate and unprofessional.”

Read more: Lawyer questions district's policy after officer-involved shooting at Hug

“Investigations take time, and I only hope that the community will be patient in any rush to judgment based on the constant barrage of media statements used to disparage this officer who dedicated his life to protect and to serve," the school district's attorney, Neil Rombardo, said in a statement to the RGJ in 2016. "When the investigation is complete, the truth will come out, and these allegations and misconceptions will be laid to rest in a court of law, if necessary.”

The officer's name has not been made public, and the Reno Gazette Journal has not named the officer.

In the 2016 interview, Houston said he took the case because it was concerning that a police officer would fire in a crowd of students.

But months later, Houston, who called the district’s use of force akin to executing kids, was no longer representing Logan.

It came around the time Logan was in trouble again.

In the spring of 2017, Logan was accused of being in possession of a firearm, months after being released from the hospital.

He is still under house arrest and on probation. Charges are pending.

At an evaluation last month, he was found not competent, his mother, Cheryl Pitchford, said.

“I don’t know if they are waiting for him to be found competent,” she said. “But I don’t know if he ever will be.”

The alarm on Nancy Pitchford's phone rings every day at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., a reminder to give her grandson his medicine.

When it goes off on a recent night, she jumps up, pours him an iced tea and hands him the large white pill.

"It's working to stop the seizures," she says.

Logan attends an alternative school every day for a few hours since returning home in August from the rehab center in Texas.

His assignments and test questions are all read to him.

He is training himself to be left-handed now. His right arm is still limp. He holds his right hand in his left almost like a baseball.

After school, he is in therapy until 7 p.m. every night. The therapy varies from intensive outpatient counseling to physical and speech therapies.

The grandmother pays a family friend to drive him. Before that, she was paying hundreds of dollars a week in cab fare to get him to appointments.

Logan will attend a traditional high school after winter break, and the district has already reached out to set up a transition plan.

Someday, Logan says, maybe he would like to be a P.E. teacher.

Asked if he liked the idea of being a coach who kids could look up to one day, he hesitates then nods his head yes.

But then he looks defeated again and shakes his head no.

Older brother Devin says Logan can beat him with his one good hand when they play UFC, a mixed martial arts video game. That makes Logan smile.

Read more: Brother of Hug student wants alternative to guns for school police

For Devin, the outcome for his brother has been worse than he ever imagined.

“He wants to live his life like anyone else,” Devin said.

Devin, now 18, was at school the day his brother was shot.

He remembers being excited about getting out of classwork when the school went on a code red lockdown.

Then he started getting messages on his phone about what happened.

“I just sat in the corner of my class crying,” he said.

When police came to their classroom and started searching students, Devin told an officer Logan was his brother.

Devin said a police officer took his phone and backpack.

The day after the shooting, Superintendent Traci Davis said the district’s emergency response plans had prepared the district for what happened at Hug.

“Had it not been for (school police's) quick actions and professionalism, I truly believe the outcome could’ve been much worse for our students,” she said.

For Devin, watching his brother struggle has been hard.

"The outcome for one student was so bad," Devin said. "Don't they care about that one student?"

After his brother was shot, Devin split his time between the hospital and asking people to sign a petition demanding laws that would require Washoe County school police to carry tasers.

The district has refused to answer why tasers are not carried by its police officers.

Tasers are issued to University of Nevada police officers, who also patrol Truckee Meadows Community College, and to Clark County School District police officers.

Devin helped organize a march of more than 100 people from a park near their home to the district's main office a week after Logan was shot, demanding more forms of nonlethal force.

More than 2,300 signed the online petition. The petition page on Change.org is no longer active.

Devin and Logan haven’t returned to Hug since that day.

Two years after the shooting, the findings from the officer-involved shooting investigation have yet to be released.

The Reno Police Department conducted the investigation, interviewing more than 100 people, including faculty and students.

The Washoe County District Attorney’s Office received the investigation earlier this year and said it could be released this month. The name of the officer will be made public once the investigation is released.

The case has taken this long for a variety of reasons, including staffing issues, said district attorney spokeswoman Michelle Bays.

Criminal charges against Logan are still possible. He could face charges for bringing knives to school and for allegations he was in possession of a gun in the months following the incident at Hug.

The juvenile division team chief has not made a charging decision yet, Bays said.

For now, Logan waits.

His grandmother said Logan is still on house arrest and has regular check-ins with his parole officer.

The family doesn't have an attorney and doesn't plan to press charges against the district.

"He's getting better every day," Nancy Pitchford says, looking at Logan. She's says she's trying to convince him that he will read again.

"Getting better is all that really matters now."