““The guy to my left had now completed his turn. He looked at me, the universal expression for Oh, shit moving across his face, his right hand going for the inside of his jacket. Too late. I snapped my hips to the right and backhanded the flail around. He saw it coming, but was too focused on deploying his weapon and couldn’t concentrate on getting out of the way. It caught him in the side of the neck—not as solid a shot as his buddy had received but good enough for my purposes. His eyes lost focus and I knew I’d have at least a couple seconds before he was back in the game.””
