Just a Game

Before the Game [Contestant Side 1]

Libya McCalister looked up from her toenails that she was currently painting when the flimsy door to the shabby dorm room she shared with four other wannabe models flew open. Their manager, Tristan, stood there in all his glory, fully decked out in a red, white and blue outfit, complete with a top hat. Tristan liked attention, and he made sure he got it wherever he went.

"Where's Natasha?" he demanded, crinkling his nose at the smell of nail polish.

"Don't know. Haven't seen her all day," Elise, one of Libya's roommates, volunteered in her annoying chipmunk voice. Libya glanced at the top bunk above Elise's to find it empty. Natasha would usually be there, either drawing furiously in her sketchbook or curled up under the covers. To Libya, it didn't make much difference whether she was there or not. Unlike the others who occupied the room (Elise, for one, never shut up and Libya considered her the nuisance of the century), Natasha was silent. A lithe, graceful shadow, reminding Libya of the mute black cat that sometimes came up to their dorm building to be fed. Her long limbs, light movements and aloof manner all seemed incredibly feline.

"Maybe Natasha is actually a cat and not human," Fawn, Libya's roommate and best friend in the agency, would often muse. "Just look at her eyes. Her pupils are all wrong."

"Don't be stupid. Humans can't be cats. She's probably just stoned," Libya would scoff, even though secretly she agreed with Fawn. She couldn't admit that she indulged in non-practical fantastic imaginings of her roommate being a cat. After all, she had an image to uphold. The image of the queen bee of the agency, the head bitch of them all.

Libya wasn't a bitch. She merely assumed the role because every group needed one and the others clearly weren't up to the task. Elise was too friendly. Fawn was too nice. Natasha was too quiet. And there was Mia, the final member of their room, who was too interested in building weird structures with parts she picked up from the junkyard to think about anything else.

Simply put, Libya had four hopeless roommates who would get walked all over in the model industry if there weren't someone to watch over them and demand that they were treated right, especially considering they were still new to the business, working under a small agency that was desperate enough to agree to shady photoshoot deals. They needed someone to scream at their manager for setting them up with unknown photographers with sketchy credentials and eyes that often lingered on places they shouldn't. They needed someone to slam their handbag into the faces of jerk clients who would refuse to pay them for reasons on the lines of "you're not famous yet and should be willing to work for free because we gave you the exposure you need".

They needed a bitch, so Libya became one. Growing up with six younger siblings in her care made her extremely good at keeping everyone in line. She looked the part, too, with the pale blonde pixie haircut, piercing blue eyes, and icy glare. She practiced in the mirror often, just to make sure that she got it perfect. Libya took her role very seriously.

Being the queen bee did have its downsides, though. For example, whenever something went wrong or someone went missing, the automatic solution was to ask Libya.

"Libya, you seen Natasha anywhere?" Tristan asked as he made himself comfortable on a beanie bag chair that Fawn's mom had sent.

Libya groaned. "I'm not Natasha's keeper! And you know she never tells me anything. She never even talks."

"Too bad. I was hoping to talk to all of you together."

"You can always just talk to Natasha later," Elise suggested, plopping down at Libya's side on the bed and ripping open a bag of potato chips that Fawn's mom brought on her last visit. "She's probably outside playing some video game, or sketching, or doing drugs—"