The Brink by Austin Bunn Page A

and the only thing people saw was the wreckage to come. That must not happen to her.
    While she watched, two brown-skinned islanders paddled out to the raft in an outrigger. They tied up and peered through the water. Haley drew a sharp breath. The taller of the two dove, his hands steepled over his head, and did not surface. Her chest tightened. They were diving for the ring.
    Haley rushed along the walkway toward the hotel lobby, her eyes locked on the figures. She passed a hotel worker, a short, chubby woman. “Out there, bad things,” Haley said, and the woman smiled warmly. Haley wanted to scream. Atthe concierge desk, she banged the silver bell. The concierge came wiping food from the corners of his mouth.
    Haley pointed. “What are they doing?”
    The concierge gazed outside, black eyes squinting. “These men work in this place.”
    â€œYou ask them to get our ring?”
    â€œWe ask,” the concierge said, which wasn’t even an answer.
    Haley waited while he located a whistle. The concierge blew it out on the deck and the pair paddled back to the shore. They were both teenagers. The shorter seemed terrified to be noticed at all. But the taller figure, the one Haley had watched dive, was pretty and unafraid. His muscles looked like they had been scored into clay with a knife. He was lighter-colored than the concierge, almost caramel. Like the others, he seemed to have no body hair whatsoever, a flawless envelope of skin. His age was impossible to guess, maybe eighteen, maybe thirty, there were no wrinkles to judge. Standing in wet swim trunks, he scanned Haley as much as she judged him. She realized she was wearing one of Mac’s vintage T-shirts that read, “South East Asian Community Pride!” Please God let them not read English.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” Haley asked.
    â€œLangy,” the concierge said for him. “He only speaks Balinese.”
    â€œWhat was Langy doing out there?” she said.
    The concierge translated. Between each consonant there were these crazy, sweeping hammocks of vowels. “He say he try to get your ring,” the concierge said. “But he cannot find it.”
    â€œHow do I know he doesn’t have it already?” Haley asked.
    It was an absurd question—he had nowhere to hide it—but it felt appropriately skeptical and assertive. Haley watched Langy’s face for signs of nervousness. His cheekbones, she wanted his cheekbones. Langy shook his head and spoke.
    â€œWhat he say?” she asked.
    â€œHe say he doesn’t see your ring.”
    â€œHe say more than that,” Haley said. “I hear more sentences than that.”
    The concierge looked at her with annoyance. “Miss—” he said.
    â€œMrs.,” Haley said.
    â€œPlease calm,” he said. “Your ring is where you leave it.”
    Mac returned from the Internet café with a warm bottle of orange soda for her. He’d met a middle-aged Australian tourist who’d been on the street when the bombs went off, who had a cell-phone camera. The footage “was insane,” Mac said as he sat next to Haley on the foam mattress and tried, unsuccessfully, to recline on one of the odd triangular pillows.
    â€œYou watched it?” Haley asked.
    â€œHe seemed like he needed to talk,” Mac said.
    It turned out there’d actually been one blast inside the restaurant, which killed some people, and when others rushed outside, there was another bomb waiting street-side, a trap.
    â€œPlease stop,” Haley said. “Are we getting out of here?”
    Flights were booked for two days, Mac explained. Anyway, now was the safest time, he said. “These things never go in runs.”
    â€œYou don’t know that,” she said.
    â€œI do,” he said. “I read The Economist .”
    â€œI never see you read The Economist. ”
    â€œI savor The Economist on the toilet. Where you are