During the Second Civil War, a new U.S. political party called the Family Protection Movement established The Divide, which separates Normal people from those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Seventeen-year old Serenity Blackwater lives in the normal Midwestern town of Mapleville, but she is not normal. She hacks into an illegal gay chat room and meets Dawn, a lesbian who lives in a gay community less than a mile away. Serenity discovers normal people can bribe their way inside the walls and decides to go, both to meet Dawn and check out what may be her future home. Dawn is even more beautiful than Serenity hoped, and the two soon become a couple. But Serenity only has a few months before she must take the Normal Verification Test, and then she’ll be separated from her family forever. So she joins the Human Equality Organization, an underground group working to end The Divide. Dawn thinks the rebellion is too dangerous, and since Dawn’s ex-girlfriend Malaki is also a member, Serenity doesn’t tell Dawn about her involvement. Serenity reveals to the HEO that her parents are leading a campaign to organize attacks on all Gay Communities. With her help, the HEO creates Project Jericho, in which all Gay Communities walls will implode at once. But after too many delays, and when Dawn discovers Serenity has been spending more time with Malaki than her, Serenity knows she has to start the revolution herself. She heads to D.C. to contact a group of senators secretly against The Divide ... or straight into a trap set by the Family Protection Movement.

Uprising

Even worse, as Dawn and I talked and texted over the next few days, I realized despite our discussion about The Divide, she still didn’t want me to join HEO. So I told her I’d be coming back to 17 on Friday at eight P.M. But really I was headed in at five.


I’d been forced to lie my whole life; it didn’t seem like that was going to change any time soon.


On Friday afternoon I withdrew more money out of the bank and got into 17 the way I had before, my backpack stocked with clothes and my tablet. I knew I’d have to find my own way out, but it was useless to make plans any further ahead than one day, one step at a time.


The sun beat down as I headed to the theater. Walking the streets without Dawn was lonely, but I didn’t want any of the other people I’d met here to see me, either.


Chapter 20