Chapter 6 - The Falling Angel
The helicopter swung violently off-axis, its tail rotor splintering against the rooftop's communications tower. The pilot fought the controls, throttling up to pull away from the roofline, but the tail was sheared in half. With an ear-splitting shriek of tearing metal, the multi-million-dollar machine spun out of control, clipping the roof parapet before plummeting down toward the street below.
The resulting explosion down on the asphalt rattled the very foundation of the skyscraper.
Silence descended on the roof, broken only by the crackle of fire and the howling gale. Clara was shivering violently now, her skin turning blue-gray. Her contractions were coming in rapid, excruciating waves.
"Mark... she's coming," Clara gasped, her teeth chattering. "I can feel it... please... you have to help her."
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Mark stripped off his heavy coat and spread it over the tar paper, gently laying Clara down. He had delivered babies before—paramedic training was part of the academy curriculum—but never at two hundred feet in the air, in the freezing wind, atop a tower that was burning from the inside out.
He knelt between her knees, his hands trembling as he reached into his med-kit for sterile gauze and shears. But when he looked down, his heart turned to ice: the dark pool soaking Clara’s clothes was not amniotic fluid. It was dark, arterial blood.
