Solis had fallen unceremoniously asleep against the car window, even with the wailing of sirens and the phone call between Josh and Keiren. Keiren guessed the poor boy needed the sleep.
"That was Blight by Screech! You're listening to 73.8 WBBC, the eeevening effervescence! Hope all you folks have been having a wonderful night. It's looking pretty..."
Keiren stopped listening then, turning the radio down a few levels but still leaving it playing so that Solis could have some sort of background noise to sleep to. It wasn't a particularly long drive back home, but Keiren wanted to let him sleep undisturbed for as long as he could.
The hazy red of a stoplight lit up the foggy intersection in a strange crimson as Keiren pulled up to it, and though it was an eerie color, Keiren found it pleasant. It felt familiar.
"I don't like it," Solis murmured.
Keiren looked over at him, finding that the boy looked just as peaceful as he had a moment ago. He must've been talking in his sleep.
But Keiren could feel his throat beginning to swell, beginning to squeeze what air he had in him out.
Solis was doing it again. And this time, Keiren couldn't just wait it out. He was driving.
"Solis," he started, his voice barely a whisper, "Solis, you're doing... it," his words became quieter and quieter with each second that passed.
He had to think. He had to think fast. And, yet, his predicament was making his mind fuzzier with each second that droned on. The road in front of him became warped and strange, and the city's lights bled into the fog. The red turned a brilliant green, flooding the inside of his car.
"I don't want to." Solis said again, and Keiren could see the corners of his vision begin to darken. This was bad. This was very bad.
"So...lis," he tried one last time, reaching for the radio knob to turn it up loud and hopefully wake Solis up. He could hear the car horns behind him begin to blare, but they felt so far away. He didn't reach the volume knob before he left the waking world.
-
Keiren came to with something violently shaking his arm and the sound of several horns blaring at once. The closest horn, he realized quickly, was from his own car; he was laying face down on the steering wheel, jaw slack, blaring the horn in one continuous scream.
"Please, please," he heard Solis beg, "no, I didn't mean to. Please wake up."
Keiren's eyes trailed over to the boy. Solis' image was coming in and out of focus, but Keiren could tell he'd been crying. He looked absolutely mortified.
"Get up," Solis said, more pleading than demanding, "you have to be okay."
Keiren would've liked to assure that he was okay, but the words fell flat on his tongue. All he could do was groan as he sat up, his foot luckily still on the brake.
There was a loud tapping at the window beside him that he hadn't noticed until just then, though it'd been going for a while. He drowsily looked over, narrowing his eyes at the worried look of some stranger.
Groggily, Keiren reached for the window switch and rolled down his window. The man on the other side was a rather short fellow, with brown hair and freckles that reminded him of Ambrose to some extent.
"He...llo." Keiren mumbled, Solis squeaking something unintelligible.
"Sir, are you alright? You fainted," the man said, worry in his voice, "I already called emergency services, but they won't be here for a few minutes, so I wanted to check in on you. Do you have heart problems? Breathing problems?"
"It was me," Solis blurted all at once, clambering over Keiren despite his seatbelt — he'd somehow slipped out of it without unbuckling it. "I didn't mean to, I — I promise," he sobbed, "but I made him faint. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Please help him."
The man quirked his head to the side. "Excuse me? What do you mean?"
Keiren coughed suddenly, shaking his head to clear his foggy mind. "His dispar's very knew," he began, "he's just not used to it yet. You get it — some people are late bloomers."
"Oh," the man said, "yes, I... suppose. I'd recommend a pediatric dispar therapist to ensure he can handle it, though," he gave Solis a small smile, "I understand making mistakes, but it's dangerous to have a powerful dispar go uncontrolled."
Keiren nodded. "Yeah. I'll look into that."
"Say," the man began again, his face turning somewhat grave, "you look awfully familiar." He narrowed his eyes, staring intently at Solis without so much as blinking.
"He shouldn't," Keiren replied flippantly, but the man paid him no mind.
"Oh! You look a lot like Syrus Wilson," the man realized all at once, "are you related?"
Keiren watched with something of his own horror as the stranger's face turned into one of shock. He stepped back from the car, holding one hand over his mouth.
"I'm not related to him," Solis said quietly, settling back in his seat. "I'm not him, either. I'm Solis."
But the man just continued to back away until he made it to the sidewalk, whereupon the flashing lights of an ambulance overtook Keiren's view. A square of paramedics and EMTs headed out of the ambulance, checking on Keiren and asking him all sorts of questions while Solis covered his ears — likely to protect himself from the sirens — and curled himself up in the passenger seat.
After a brief examination, Keiren was asked to step out of the car. He complied, albeit shakily, having to use the side of his car for support.
"We'd like to take you to the hospital, sir," one of them said. "We have a stretcher for you in the ambulance. Do you think you can walk there?"
"Solis," Keiren began, "how's he—"
"He can come with us," a different EMT assured, leading Keiren to the ambulance as yet another emergency services worker attempted to coax a very shaken Solis out of the vehicle.
After a few moments of laying on the stretcher, Solis made his way into the ambulance with a security blanket around him that had undoubtedly been given to him by one of the workers.
Solis sat in one of the seats. Keiren watched him, and he followed Solis' gaze to a little pack of syringes. He was staring at them, entirely unmoving, with a look in his eyes that hinted at something terrible. Keiren didn't have the will to think about that, though. He instead thought about his choices, and wondered if maybe Josh was right.
Maybe Solis was too dangerous.
