17. A Judge Included

“Room six,” Meika whispered when they reached the door marked with the simple number. He slipped his phone into his back pocket and tried the doorknob. The door opened.

And then Farren took the lead, switching on the lights in the empty studio room and sweeping it with his eyes like he was checking for threats. Then he stepped back and let Meika enter.

The space was large—made of long, polished floorboards and opposing walls of reflective glass. The air was cold, air conditioning noticeably blowing from vents in the ceiling.

Meika dropped his bag on the floor in the corner of the room. He took off his hoodie and stuffed it into the bag. And Sevan was left staring at the full length of Meika’s sleeve tattoo, left visible by the sleeveless dark shirt he was wearing.

Meika’s brown eyes turned unexpectedly toward him, and Sevan felt an involuntary breath catch in his throat. He glanced away.

“Are you going to stay in the room?” Meika asked quietly.

“Uh…I don’t know. What am I supposed to do?” Sevan shrugged stiffly.

Meika smiled—a shy, flickering expression. He was pulling his hair back, smoothing it with his fingers. “You’re supposed to do whatever you want.” He leaned down and lifted a hair clip out of his bag, then pinned the black and platinum locks behind his head. Half-up. Probably because there was too much hair to be efficiently all put up.

Do whatever I want? Like slap the shit out of you? Sevan found himself staring at a stray wisp against Meika’s neck and wondering if that hair was all actually his. “I guess I’ll just stay here,” he murmured, unsure where else he would go. He paced into a corner, then put his back to the wall.

Meika began a warmup.

It was an odd combination. The tattoos, the sculpted muscles, the pretty face, the piercings, the hair, the fact that he apparently danced on a professional level.

Fucking Supernova, Sevan heard in his head. His eyes traced the tattoo on the side of Meika’s neck, then down to his neckline, his shoulders. The way his muscles pulled and contracted, smooth with every slow stretch.

The floorboards were more interesting. Sevan glared down at them, wondering again why he was even there.

Other people started to arrive—first a thin man with neon hair. “It is an incredible pleasure to meet you, Avis. I’m so excited to see this thing come together!”

Meika shook the man’s hand when it was offered to him, but then he only laughed and said something about getting lost in the building.

Farren observed the interaction carefully from where he stood by the wall.

Next, a woman arrived. A similar introduction followed. “Jessica,” the woman said her name was. “I know we met at the thingy last week, but I want to reiterate how thrilled I am to be going on tour with you next month.”

What? Sevan’s eyes snapped up for a second.

Jaq had said this was critical time for Meika. He had just released an album, she said. Meikhyel Callisto— Avis— was ramping up for a tour. And in the middle of the preparation and media push, he had gone missing.

Gone missing to Miami, specifically.

And per Jaq, no one knew why.

To make Lacey disappear? To get in contact with her husband, and get him to collect her? Why meet in Miami? Why meet at all? Why go through all the effort when he could sit back and let his management handle it? Why say he wanted to meet, then never approach the two people he set up the meeting with?

His parents knew. How did his parents know something his 24/7 bodyguard supposedly didn’t?

Sevan’s eyes lifted to survey Meika. His smile. His easy conversation. Those dark brown eyes of his.

“I’m crazy. And they can make anyone they want believe it, too.”

How he leaned in to pose with one of the dancers for a selfie. “Group photo!” someone said.

“A judge included.”

Sevan silently lifted out his phone and opened a search browser. Meikhyel Callisto Conservatorship.

It was a hunch. A threadbare theory. But the results that lit up Sevan’s screen were real.

Nine years ago. The initial hearing took place the March after Meika turned sixteen. His parents, Bernard and Cindy Violet, filed for a limited conservatorship, citing a lack of basic competencies and periodic phases of concerning mental instability. Diagnoses of anxiety and major depressive disorder.

Then, two years later, a second hearing for a full conservatorship. Self-destructive behaviors and mental illness that Meikhyel Callisto refused to be medicated for. He was a danger to himself, and potentially to others. Three episodes of highly erratic behavior were noted in the case, including documentation of how Meika had apparently taken a baseball bat to a $900,000 Lamborghini in what his parents’ lawyers called “an explosion of rage.”

Both hearings were meant to be private, and so were the records. But it all leaked. In great detail. Like whatever privacy protections Meika was meant to have were no more watertight than a fish net.

Sevan was familiar with full conservatorships. Multiple residents at The Adaline had them, including his father. Usually, the conservator responsibilities fell to one or more family members, and beyond making sure the bills got paid, receiving incident reports, and dropping in for the occasional visit, the “responsible person” wasn’t very involved in the conservatee’s life.

Meika’s conservatorship was different. His parents owned RedViolet. RedViolet enforced every detail of Meika’s life: his bodyguard, his schedule, who he met and when, what access he had to outside things—oxy included. Advil, even. The men who had come to Sevan and Rick’s motel room in Miami were not police, but to Meikhyel Callisto, they were as good as.

He hadn’t just been escaping the routine of his life for a while. He had run away from a legal guardianship. If it had gone any further, Meika’s parents could’ve called the police on him the same way a parent was within their legal right to have law enforcement return a runaway teen.

Sevan’s eyes traveled upward again, and for a split second, he met a glance from Meika. Meika’s lips pressed with an uncertain smile. He’s a captive, it clicked in Sevan’s mind.

And fully distracted, Sevan’s face responded automatically: he smiled back.

A look of immediate relief came over Meika’s face. It was so honest, real, sudden—it made Sevan’s gut twist with guilt. Both with the fact that he hadn’t meant to grant any silent forgiveness, and because there wasn’t any to be had.

It was hard to sink into the reality of. The fact that the person who had smashed an almost-million-dollar vehicle with a baseball bat and the person standing in this studio room were the same. The oxy overdose, the parking garage in Miami, the razor blade in the bathroom.

He was taking his meds, Sevan realized silently. The conservatorship was forcing him to take his meds. And if Meika was truly unwilling in his own treatment, he had undoubtedly been off them in Miami. He was a captive, but by all evidence, he was better off as one.

“What time does the instructor get here?” one of the dancers asked.