Chapter 2: Acacia Ivy

Acacia stirred, moaning, her lashes fluttering open to reveal her deep, green eyes as she beheld her surroundings for the very first time. The ceiling was white, or maybe light beige, she noted. Had she died? Was this what Heaven looked like? Plenty of people in Seven still took Mass, though it was harder and harder to as the Peacekeepers consolidated their grip on the district; all the churches and the synagogues and the mosques had been closed down. Her parents and little sister still prayed sometimes in the comfort of their own home. But it was hurried, breathy mumblings – not unlike the sounds she would sometimes hear coming from Mom and Dad's bedroom when they were making love but trying to pretend they weren't. Minus the creak of the bedsprings, of course. Now, saying Grace gave the distinct impression they were being watched.

Acacia turned her head to one side, then the other. If this was Heaven, the most she could say about it was that it was well defined.

Heaven was apparently a bedroom: four walls, lime green in color. Feeling came into her back again and she noted for the first time that she was on a bed. But it was a far cry from the mothballed mattress she and her sister shared, sleeping on the dirt floor in their shack on the edge of Logging Camp 16. The mattress, and the down comforter now blanketing her, had to be made from the finest groosling feathers sesterces could buy.

Grunting, Acacia sat up, her eyes fixed onto the far edge of the wall opposite her, almost to where the corners met, but not quite. Sunlight was streaming in from the windows flanking the bed on either side, and the patterns it created on the perpendicular wall sparkled like the finest diamonds imported from across the Great Mountains.

"Close your mouth, why don't you, Acacia – we are not a codfish!"

She jumped at the voice, a yelp sticking in her throat, as she whirled to stare at the corner to her right. A chair was nestled nicely in the space where the two panels met – and sprawled in it was Maximus Meridius, the berserker of a boy who had won last year by killing ten of every dozen tributes.

"Wh…. What is this place?"

"The East Wing of the presidential palace. Ravinstill says this bedroom isn't often used. Hell, many of the rooms in this mansion were never used, least before the war." The boy seemed very much at ease, smiling casually, though there was a smugness to it that made Acacia bristle.

Acacia cocked her head and looked at him, her oval-shaped face framed by tumbling locks of hair the color of rust. She had an ever-so-slightly bulbous nose, Maximus had to concede, at least by Two standards, but it thankfully didn't negate the fact that she was a pretty little thing, in a homely way. 17 years old, so not much younger than him; he had turned 19 the day after he left the arena. Today was his 20th birthday, in fact.

That being said, Acacia wasn't a bad birthday present, on the whole. Maybe she'd even let him unwrap his present… His gaze roamed over hers, and he watched her flush shyly.

"… Why are you here?" Acacia's voice didn't bobble this time, her tone a pleasing alto.

"The President arranged an express train for me out of Two as a favor to him. He figured you could use a friend when you woke up." Maximus splayed his arms wide in a kind of Ta-da flourish, his smile pursed and swaggering. "So here I am. Capitol doesn't have an established hospital yet, so this will be our medical wing for now, case other Victors like you come in with health concerns. I gotta say, you gave us quite a show, baby." He was supremely satisfied when Acacia blushed even further pink at the term of endearment, though she tried to cover it up with a scowl that came off as more adorable than anything else.

"I'm not like you…" she muttered, casting her eyes down.

"No, I should think not! Racing ain't the same as killing."

He was certainly right about that. He had seen it for himself, standing in the District 2 Square and watching on the giant screens from home. The 2nd Annual Hunger Games was less a death match and more of a three-ring circus, because there had only been three active factors.

Well, four, if you counted what happened when the intercom countdown started.

All two dozen of the players had been forced to witness Maximus's free reign of terror when he just went pedestal by pedestal. Scared out of their minds and desperate, a vast majority of the tributes this year figured it wasn't a bad plan, on the whole, especially if it might help one of them get home alive all the faster.

The timekeeper was just droning, "59…" when –

KABOOM.

21 of the 24 tributes made their move to step off their pedestals and get their hands on someone first. This was met with a 21-gun salute – of TNT. Maximus's strategy of doing things out of turn – namely, not standing still when the 60 seconds prior to the gong were meant as a gentlemanly guideline – had proven to be quite controversial among some people, not the least of which being President Ravinstill. So, he had asked the POW engineers from Three still being held for war crimes to design a mechanism to make sure the tributes stayed on their plates for all of the 60 seconds.

The result had been landmines planted around the pedestals. Landmines that now blew 7/8ths of the field sky-high. One second, they were there, and the next second… they weren't.

Up in his private box in the stands, Ravinstill had winced. Perhaps he should have taken the time to send a memo to the districts regarding this rule adaptation. It was to be the only rule that must be followed while in the arena, though there would be a few unspoken guidelines to be developed in later years. On the other hand, the district scum were rubes, who often needed to absorb a lesson by having it smack them in the head. Learning by doing.

The President just hadn't expected this many tributes to 'learn by doing' – the lesson learned being how to get to oblivion the fastest way possible.

When the tinkling of falling pebbles had ceased, when the thundering roll of twenty-one explosions going off near simultaneously had faded away, the viewers in the stands were gaping in horror. Gasps were still going up. Then, someone started to laugh, the hilarity spreading to several sections, serving as an underbelly to the voice on the intercom saying "54…. 53…." The poor announcer had paused in disbelief over the tragedy that had just occurred, and was now a beat or two off the pace. Not that it ultimately mattered in the end.

In the decades to come, the Capitol would try to whitewash and propagandize what had essentially amounted to a mass suicide. They said that the tributes who had suicided out… by accident… had actually been intentional in their motives, in a refusal to play the Capitol's game. Late night Capitol comedians undermined this somewhat by laughing at the clip, replayed over and over again, and from that day to this, the act of stepping off your pedestal before the gong sounded came to be known as 'pulling a Maximus.' The moment was consistently ranked high within The Top 10 Most Hilarious Hunger Games FAILS, right up through and including the '70s.

For the minuscule group of survivors, the 21-gun explosion would also make history, setting the fastest Top Three in the history of the contest. When the intercom voiced stammered out the "1" and the gong sounded, the three remaining tributes moved quickly.

The preteen boy from 10 turned and ran for his life, pelting for the first rows of Capitolites seated only five yards away from where he had just wet himself. He tried to dive over the low-cut wall, melt into the crowd, but hands just grabbed him and pushed him back, the spectators shrieking with laughter. He might as well have been trying to move through a membrane.

The exceedingly tall girl from 12 – eighteen but asthmatic – wasted no time in chasing down the little boy from where she had been launched, four pedestals down. She kept her strides efficient, the crowd giving her an assist by grabbing and now holding the little boy down when they saw her coming.

Delivered into the hands of his murderer by rowdy fans, the boy from 10 squealed like a piglet before the girl from 12 twisted his head sharply, and he seemed to give a sigh before drooping in her hold.

The Top Two of the 2nd Hunger Games was set in 2 minutes flat – a rather apropos record that still stands today.

Grinning viciously, the girl from 12 dove for a pickaxe that was just slightly beyond arms' reach. Eyes scanning, her bloodthirsty gaze fell on her last opponent – the skinny but pretty girl from the lumber district. She too had run, but to the farthest edge of the arena she could opposite the miners' representative. Almost 100 yards away. No matter.

Twelve began running along the edge of the arena, circling the ring before she would come to Acacia's position and finish her off.

Unfortunately for Twelve, Acacia began running too – away from her. And so for the next forty-five minutes, the Capitol Arena was subjected to the most deadly and ridiculous game of Ring-Around-the-Rosie. Except there were no pockets full of posies to be had, and only one could turn into 'ashes, ashes, we all fall down!' This wasn't a fight to the death, this was a track and field meet.

Luckily, that is where Acacia Ivy excelled. She had been an accomplished distance sprinter, running for her high school at the Willamette Speedway. She now outclassed Twelve easily.

What made it all the worse was that it never seemed to occur to Twelve to just run across the circle and attempt to cut Acacia off. The heads in the stands swiveled with the centrifugal force of the two girls pounding the pavement – or, the dust, in this case. Around and around they went, the crowd wondering breathlessly who would run out of air first, who would hopefully trip and fall.

It turned out to be the girl from Twelve.

After the first twenty-five minutes of this, she was already gassed and roaring at Acacia to slow down so she could finish her off. It was like that old bedtime fable, where the Hare is lagging behind the Tortoise and he knows it, and is trying futilely to catch up.

Except Acacia Ivy was no tortoise – she had the speed, all right, and, most critically, she also had the stamina.

She was also the only one of the two remaining tributes who didn't have asthma.

This, coupled by the stress of watching tons of other kids getting blown up, coupled by how this Hunger… Footrace kept going and going and going, the girl from Twelve, gasping for breath that her lungs couldn't take in, finally had a massive heart attack and died.

The 2nd Hunger Games was decided in just over three-quarters of an hour. Acacia Ivy was to be the first – and last – Victor to come out of the arena having not laid a hand on anyone. When she saw Twelve fall, twitching, to the gravel, she had simply kept running, then moved off of the wall when she drew near the other girl and lapped her, eyes quickly scanning to see if she really was dead.

A spectator from the first row leapt over the low wall and approached the District 12 girl, checking for a pulse. None was found. "SHE'S DEAD!" he hollered.

The crowd erupted in cheers, drowning out the sound of the trumpets. Acacia just kept right on running. In a scene reminiscent of fans streaking across the expanse of a football green, a few other audience members rushed the field and tried to catch her; it was another twenty minutes before they could – and that was only when, after running for over a solid hour, Acacia grew somewhat windy and fainted from heat exhaustion.

The Capitol's hospital had been bombed into oblivion during the Dark Days, and there was an overwhelming fear that the Games' Second Victor could be lost if they didn't find somewhere to treat her. Acacia Ivy didn't have a scratch on her, but she needed to be revived and hydrated – and fast.

President Ravinstill opened his home to the girl, which brought her to where she was now, hooked up to IV fluids and staring at her predecessor blatantly checking her out. Acacia couldn't help but blush. She had been no stranger to spectators cat-calling her during her track meets at Willamette Speedway. Several boys had told her she was pretty, especially in her sweat suit. Pursing her lips in a thin, bashful line, she stuck out a hand.

"Acacia Ivy, District 7."

"Maximus Decimus Meridius, District 2." Maximus rose out of his seat, still a little hunched over as he reached for and shook her hand.

Acacia allowed herself a small smile, even as the practical side of her brain tried to remind her that this boy had killed both her district's kids from last year – kids that she had known. "William and Clark be praised, what a name!"

Maximus's smoldering smile stayed on his face, though the warm pools of his eyes blinked rapidly. "Who?"

She full on laughed at this. "It's just an expression."

Maximus chuckled sheepishly, averting his eyes so that they fell on the sippy cup of water balanced on a little tray, which was itself balanced on a nearby ottoman. "Would you like some H2O?"

"Yes, please." And Acacia allowed her fellow Victor to hold the straw to her lips.

For a couple decades after this, if you were to head for the Willamette Speedway (though it's known as Commodus Racetrack these days), you might see a striking not-quite redhead doing laps around the track. If you do, there's really only one thing to cat-call to her, and it might get you a wave – a slightly amended line from a movie about a simpleton who just – liked – running:

"Run, Acacia, RUN!"