Prelude -- "Where I Land"
My name is Robert Cross. I'm a pilot.
NYPD Aviation Division, call sign "Falcon." I fly the bird that shows up when the ground gets too hot or the ladder's too short. Smoke, storms, gunfire--doesn't matter. When the city calls, I get in the air.
It's not glamorous. Not really. People think it's like the movies--spotlights, hero shots, steel nerves. Truth is, it's mostly rotors and routines. Controlled chaos with a flight plan. But when it matters, when there's nothing left but smoke and seconds, I know what to do. Up there, things make sense. You follow the vectors. You hold your altitude. You don't flinch.
But what grounds me--what actually keeps me tethered--isn't on any map.
Her name's Helen. NYPD, like me. She was an MP in the Army before that--military police, boots on pavement, spine straight enough to intimidate brass. Puerto Rican, late thirties, just under five-six but walks like she's six-two. Dark hair usually twisted into a bun that softens when she's home, eyes that don't miss a damn thing, and a mouth that's fluent in sarcasm and truth. She's not loud--but when she speaks, the room listens. Especially me.
We met on the job. I was still trying to disappear into the city back then. She didn't ask questions I wasn't ready to answer. Just showed up--steady, smart, unapologetically herself--until I realized maybe I didn't have to keep running.
We've got a kid now--Nico. Two years old. Already obsessed with anything that spins. He chews on rotor blades like they're teething rings. I don't know what he's going to grow up to be, but if it's loud and fast, I won't be surprised.
And then there's Marcus "Sticks" Rivas.
My partner in the sky. Ex-Marine. Combat vet. Mouth like a stand-up comic with altitude clearance. He's the one who cracks the cockpit open when my silence gets too heavy. He talks enough for both of us, and that works. He handles the noise. I handle the sky.
I keep things close to the vest. Always have. Not because I don't trust the people around me--but because the things I've seen, the weight I've carried... they don't always land clean. Some ghosts are best kept in the rearview. And some scars don't look good in daylight.
I don't talk much about before NYC. The war. L.A. The motel parking lot where my previous life ended. Some days I pretend I left it all back in LA. Other days, I know better.
But this life--Helen, Nico, the sky--that's mine now.
I've got ghosts. I've got regrets. But I've also got a family that feels like home, and a job that still means something when the rotors start to spin.
I'm not flying to escape anymore.
I'm flying to stay.
*********
Chapter 1 -- "Two Floors Up"
(POV: Robert)
The smoke was thick enough to taste.
Bronx. Seven-story walk-up. The top two floors fully engulfed. I could see the heat signature before we were even cleared in. FDNY had two ladders up, both already pinned with evacuees. Radio chatter was chaos--overlapping units, missing names, broken commands. One call cut through it all: "We've got three on the roof. Repeat--three on the roof. Fire's punching through floor six."
I pushed the collective forward. The bird dipped. Sticks keyed in from the left seat, already adjusting the hoist rig. We didn't need a game plan. We'd done this before. He worked the cabin; I worked the sky.
We banked hard east over the street, rotors slicing through heat shimmer. A plume of black smoke exploded from a stairwell vent like a warning flare. I swung us over the roof, nose tilted just enough to maintain visual on the evac point. Flames were licking the edge of the door frame. Two kids--looked under ten--and a woman stood near the ledge, shielding them with her body. Brave. Desperate. The kind of stillness that only comes from panic at full saturation.
"Rooftop in sight," I said into comms. "Setting hover. Deploying rig."
Sticks was already at the hatch, cable clipped, harness on. He gave me one slap on the shoulder--our version of don't screw this up--and dropped out into smoke and chaos. I trimmed the tail rotor to counter gust shear and brought us down low--too low, some would say. The skids were maybe three feet off the roof's edge, heat distortion bending the horizon. But the ladder trucks were boxed in below and the stairwell was gone. This was it.
Sticks hit the roof and went straight for the smaller child. He moved fast--economical, practiced. No words wasted. The girl clung to him like she knew he was her only shot. He lifted her into the sling. I adjusted drift to keep the line vertical, compensating for rooftop convection and the destabilizing effect of open flame.
The second kid was next--boy, maybe eight. Eyes wide but not crying. That scared me more. Kids that quiet had seen too much. Sticks locked him in, gave me a thumbs up. I felt every inch of torque shifting under us as I held position.
Then came the mother. She hesitated--naturally. Watched her kids go up first. I saw her lips move: thank you. And then the roof cracked.
A burst of flame shot from the building's center, blowing out the vent behind her. The structure groaned under her feet. Sticks grabbed her by the wrist, yanked hard, and half-dragged her toward the line. Debris fell in slow motion around them as I dropped two more feet into the vortex, the rotors chopping through smoke like a blade through fabric.
She clung to Sticks, who clung to the sling, who clung to the rig--and I held all of them above the fire.
I pulled up only when I felt the heat licking at the floor pan.
From below, it probably looked heroic. From the inside? It was just noise and instinct. Wind shear. Weight distribution. Controlled chaos.
But when I looked in the rearview and saw the mother's arms wrapped tight around her kids, their hair singed, their faces soot-streaked but alive--I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
We cleared the roof. The flames kept climbing.
Below us, chaos raged on, but inside the cabin, order.
The line locked. The cabin door shut. The last body in and accounted for.
I leveled us out and pulled away from the smoke column. The flames clawed after us like they didn't want to let go, but we'd bought ourselves enough sky. Sticks moved past the mother and her kids, did a quick check--no blood, no visible fractures. Just soot, shock, and a hell of a story.
He dropped back into the co-pilot seat and yanked off his helmet with a long, dramatic exhale.
"Jesus," he muttered, wiping sweat off his brow. "You tryin' to land us in hell just for the cardio?"
"I like a challenge," I said, eyes still on the horizon. "Next time I'll let you hang from a drone."
"That's cute," he said, strapping in. "Remind me to order a coffin-sized GoPro rig for your birthday."
I let a thin smile crack through, barely. The kind that doesn't reach your eyes, but still says, we made it.
Behind us, the mother was quietly sobbing, both kids curled into her like they never wanted to let go. I gave her a glance through the rearview mirror. She saw me and nodded, still trembling. I nodded back.
"EMS still set up at Bennett?" I asked, already keying in the return vector.
"Yep," Sticks said. "Radio says they've cleared a pad. Vitals get first touch, press gets blocked off. Apparently the captain told 'em if one reporter steps foot past the barricade, she's throwing their mic in the East River."
"Sounds like her."
We flew low and quiet. The adrenaline started to fade, leaving behind a hum in my bones. Sticks leaned back, helmet in his lap.
"You ever gonna admit that was impressive?" he asked.
I banked left toward the helipad, engine smooth as silk.
"You ever gonna stop fishing for compliments?"
"Never," he said, grinning. "But you still flew that like a goddamn scalpel, Falcon."
We touched down light--barely a bounce. As soon as the skids hit concrete, ground crew ran in. EMTs pulled the door open. The mother didn't wait for a stretcher. She stepped out on her own, both kids still clinging to her.
Sticks watched her go. "That right there," he muttered, voice low now. "That's why we fly."
I didn't answer.
