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

Sol shook his head. “You can’t go, Miss Blackwater. The guards are from Mapleville, and one of them could recognize you at any time.”


“I’ll go,” Malaki muttered to me. “I’ll tell you about it afterwards.”


The meeting broke up soon after that, and Malaki and I walked down the street in dejection, hand in hand.


I didn’t even realize Dawn, Akasha, Enrik, and Joy were headed our direction until they were right in our faces.


I gripped Mal’s hand tighter and held my head high. I did feel a twinge of sadness for Akasha, though, whose eyes had popped open in betrayal.


“I never cheated on you,” I told Dawn calmly. “But I did realize that to be with you I’d have to do things I can’t live with. And I’m sorry, Akasha. There wasn’t anything going on with Mal and I back when you and I were looking for them at the concert.”


“But there is now,” Akasha said with an eye roll.


Chapter 47