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 buried my face in my hands and sobbed as the tablet alerted me of still more messages. I hadn’t known Malaki thought so lightly about killing innocent people, never thought she would look me in the eye and tell me all the horrors I’d learned about in school should be inflicted on others who didn’t deserve them.


And now, since I wasn’t willing to ban myself from the normal world, I’d been thrown out of the only place I was allowed to be myself.


I jumped up, tore the crucifix from my wall, and hurled it through the window.


I needed Dawn. What had I done? I’d completely betrayed her.


I grabbed my tablet so I could delete all the messages from Malaki and block her from contacting me.


Alliance: Hello, HEO representative. We received your message. We’d like to arrange a meeting in DC at your earliest convenience.


I wiped my sweaty palms. I had to go, right now, alone.


Equality4All: Please send me your headquarters location and a list of members.


Chapter 51