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

I leaned in very close to her, and she stared straight at me, breathing faster.


“Malaki, I want you to be my girl,” I said. “And I want to be yours.”  13


I slept in Mal’s bed again that night, but I didn’t allow things to go any further than kissing. I felt like I should at least wait until we’d been together as long as Dawn and I had been before doing anything else. Dawn had never even hinted that she wanted more from me. I could tell Mal did, but she was also willing to wait for me to be ready.


If I wasn’t allowed to marry the person I loved, I wasn’t sure if there was any point of abstinence. For personal and emotional reasons, though, I didn’t see any reason to rush things. I was still getting used to Malaki being attracted to me in the first place, and to having a new girlfriend.


The house was quiet in the morning; Mal’s mom had taken her brothers to baseball practice. When her mom and brothers came back, we finally got out of bed and ate lunch with them.


Chapter 46