Beta-readers are great for identifying areas in our writing like this. What you have been told is this section does not feel finished or polished. However, there is an implied prescription of what you need to do to fix it. That bit I would suggest disregarding.

My first step would be to review the passage and see where I need to edit and work on it. Maybe I did not give it the attention I needed. Maybe I did but I gave that one reader the wrong impression. Maybe I need to add more panic feelings to the scene?

Panic is a feeling deep within the gut. For me, the best way to make my reader share this is to lead in with a fast-paced scene and then slow right down.

A fast-paced scene, as I am sure others will tell you. Is easiest to compose with short sentences. I strive for a varied but generally short length. This makes readers read faster. Much faster. Sometimes they are as tense as your characters. Not always, but sometimes. Then, at a critical moment, I slow down and allow the reader time to feel that panic too.

The best way to describe it is to ask you to imagine playing a game. For some reason, there are higher sakes than usual. Perhaps you bet on winning. Maybe your pride is at stake. Whatever the reason, this game matters. After a flurry of rapid-fire moves, we suddenly enter the end-game. You notice that the other player has a material advantage. You, on the other hand, have a slight situational advantage. You see two possible outcomes. Counting the moves ahead you see that you can only lose slowly unless the other player makes a mistake. The alternative is a daring gambit.

You make the gambit move. If your opponent plays to form, you will crush them within a few moves. If they surprise you with a counter, then you have definitely lost. Only then do you see that you had another option. A sure-fire unblockable win. It is too late to take that option.

You look at your opponent. "Your move," you tell them.

Then you wait. The only sound is the ticking of the clock. Time passes. They consider their next move very carefully. You stare at the board. All you can see is the best move that you missed. You hope they will bite but you can do nothing but watch.

You try to appear relaxed lest you give away your feelings to your opponent. You force your hands to your lap - out of site under the table. You force your face to smile a little. No, not too much - they must not think you believe you have one. Now you cannot even work out what expression to make your face adopt. You try to look bored. You focus on your breathing, willing them to make the move you want them to make.

Finally, they move and it is your turn but your opponent has made a neutral move. Have they seen the trap? Are they testing you before they commit? Have they just failed to see the situation? Do you now follow through, or give up some material and try to regain the win another way?

That feeling you have from the end of your move to the start of your next. That is panic. If you can allow your reader to empathise with that feeling within your character, you can draw it out and make it one of the tensest and compelling parts of the story.

Like in the gameplay example, time seems to crawl along. You go through so many emotions and thoughts - doing nothing but waiting. My aim is to put my reader through that feeling by putting my character through it.

The same is true of action-packed scenes. Scenes where the character is acting from fear rather than reason. I follow a four-point cycle for those. It is triggered by something happening.

Something happens -> reaction (say, shock) -> reasoning (this is bad) -> anticipation (he is going to shoot me) -> reaction (panic)...

The reaction is, of course, something happening, so we can go right back into that cycle again. For panic, I try to keep reasoning tiny or simply implied because panic requires anticipation of negative outcome without calm reasoning. Better yet, this pattern allows me to bring on an out of character moment that feels entirely justified. The pacifist hitting someone, the good guy doing something slightly evil, etc..

Even though this is an action scene I am still trying to give my reader that same feeling as the tense endgame. Bursts of action followed by enough time where anticipation can do its best work.

Only you know what the scene is supposed to do. So only you can tune it to make it do that. My general advice is usually that any scene worth including is worth fully committing to. Sometimes we writers rush through a scene to get to the next bit. It is okay to do that as long as we go back and give that scene as much love as the others later on.

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