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

Another day passes. And another. I’m not given any food, but I receive some water…I think once a day.


They must be keeping me alive for some reason.


My fingernails are bitten to stubs, and my hair is a matted mess of tangles and blood. My clothes are falling apart and stained with horrible and embarrassing body fluids.


I pace my cell, dig around in corners looking for weak spots in the rough stone, and try to claw my way through the concrete floor.


I examine the metal door that traps me, looking for hinges to unscrew or a way to pick the lock. I tear my cot into pieces. I can’t keep track of the days anymore.


One day I get food with my water and I eat it shakily, hoping not to throw it all back up. Surely whoever is keeping me here knows exactly how much nourishment will keep me on the edge of life and death.


Chapter 54