Rylee turned her head to catch Neesa’s bemused expression.
“Titivate doesn’t at all mean what I thought it does.”
“Titivate?” Rylee repeated.
“Yeah, do you know what it means?”
Rylee wanted to reach for the railing as she moved with the after-work crowd down the stairs, but the germ count was too high. “I think I’ve seen it written before. Titivate? No, I don’t know.”
“Titivate,” Neesa glanced up at Rylee, “just hearing it, what do you think it means?”
“Sexual tingling?” Rylee offered. “Getting someone aroused? His intelligent conversation titivated me.”
Neesa quirked a brow. “Intelligent conversation is what does it for you?”
“Absolutely,” Rylee said. “Every time. Give me a reading, thinking man, and I’m in a swoon.” She pulled her Metro card from the back of her phone and pushed through the barrier, then waited for Neesa to join her. “So what does it mean?”
“To tidy.” Neesa threw her hands in the air. “Titivate means to tidy things up or do a little something to improve them, like gargling with mouthwash. ‘She titivated her hair.’”
“Disappointing.”
“I know, right?” Neesa checked the Metro map, then pointed out the correct platform. They started down the stairs, and Neesa lifted her voice to be heard above the crush of commuters. “So titivate is not in the same word family as titillate.”
“You know it’s been a while since I found a nice nerd boy to titivate me or to titillate me,” Rylee sighed.
Neesa laughed. “You and me b—What the?”
Instead of standing in knots of folks who knew each other or packed into efficient lines down the platform, people had formed into what Rylee called the “death ring.” It was the circle people formed when they watched a crisis unfold.
It happened the same way all over the world.
It was the unmistakable and very human reaction that was like a great big crisis bullseye that had drawn Rylee into many a lifesaving effort.
Sometimes the rescues were successful; often, the situations were doomed from the start, which was why Rylee named them “the death ring.”
Adrenaline kicked her senses into high drive as Rylee caught Neesa’s hand, holding her back.
Rule number one of rescue: Don’t become part of the problem.
First step of rescue: Take in the lay of the land, assess the dangers.
From the stairs, they could see a man, clutching his chest, contorting his face with agony. No one had entered the ring of observers to help. That usually meant no one had the necessary skills or the confidence to try.
That crush was surely taking up the guy’s available oxygen.
Neesa and Rylee came to the same conclusion at the same moment—this emergency was limited to a single subject’s medical situation—not a fight, not a contaminant.
Rylee commanded, “Back. Back. Back,” as she raced down the stairs, shoving people out of the way.
Neesa, her elbows bent and held high, plowed forward. “Clear the way. Move!”
By the time they reached the center platform, the man had one knee on the ground and was hovering over his bent leg, using it to support himself on his elbow as he clutched his heart.
Rylee quickly shucked her coat and laid it on the ground behind the man, then put her hands on his shoulders. “Sir, I’m a trained ex-Marine medic. May I help you?”
The man nodded without looking up. His breath came in quick, shallow puffs.
Rylee pointed at a sturdy-looking, gray-haired woman with the stoic face of a bean counter. She was dependable. “Ma’am, do you have a phone with bars?”
