Prologue
Ruby talks about the color black.
Chapter 1-5
There's been some time since the attack on the city. Ruby is scouting the streets for information about where the soldiers are stationed so that the group of children and agents can avoid them to get out of the city and head for the old Children's League camp.
On her way back to their hideout she spots a few of the agents from the group. She sees them eating food they were suppose to bring for everyone and while she joins them near the hideout Ruby touches one of the agents and sees their plan to trade the PSI kids for money.
Soon, Cole returns to the hideout and he is followed by Senator Cruz, one of the underground people that fought against President Grey. Ruby tells already suspecting Cole about the agents plan and they make a plan to send them of on a wrong path with the help of Ruby's intervention.
It is time to move. Clancy is tied-up in the back room and Ruby brings him water and clothes to clean himself and then Cole ties him up again. Agents go on their wrong route influenced by Ruby, Senator Cruz and some of the kids travel in one group and Cole, Ruby, Liam, Chubs, Vida and tied-up Clancy in another.
On their road Ruby's group gets spotted by soldiers and Cole is forced to use his Red powers. Clancy is in on Cole's secret and tries to manipulate him by showing him images of other Reds being tortured but Ruby notices and intervenes quickly. Clancy is knocked out for the rest of the way.
On one of their breaks Ruby and Liam notice signs left by the kids who escaped East River. Ruby takes the wheel while Cole takes a sleeping break. She decides to follow the signs in hopes to find Zu and eventually she does with a group of dozen more kids.
Cole and rest agree to take the kids with them and soon they arrive at the old camp and are greeted by Dolly, one of the agents. Cate is there as well and is heartbroken because there is no Jude. Senator Cruz and rest follow suit soon after.
Cate and Dolly reveal that other agents took everything they could from the camp and went to meet with other agents that were with Ruby and the group. Cate also reveals that the flash drive was fried and left useless after the attack. Ruby and Cole's scheme where they influenced the agents to go on a different route is revealed and everyone is furious and suspicious of them. On her way to her room she choose, Ruby gets within an earshot of the conversation happening in the room next to it where Chubs, Vida and Liam talk suspiciously about her siding with Cole and being too close to him. Heartbroken because of what she heard Ruby goes to her room and takes a cold shower.
Analysis
The plot continues from the previous novel.
Ruby and the group of agents and PSI kids have been staying hiding and moving slowly through the city. Ruby is haunted by Jude's accident. Agents' planning to trade the kids is disappointing but doesn't come as a surprise and Ruby realises the truth that no matter how much time they spent together, their hatred is always the same.
Everyone, besides Clancy, seems to be hopeful for the possible cure.
Chapter 6-10
Cate and Dolly decide to leave to find the other agents. The others are adjusting and making life at the new quarters less uncomfortable.
One day when Ruby brings food to now prisoner Clancy she manages to get into his thoughts and gets information and a code for the classified files about the PSI camps. Reviewing the files Cole, Ruby and rest decide to first hit a smaller camp to rescue some kids there and after that they plan to go to Thurmond.
On the day they plan their hit with other kids Nico suddenly discovers that Cate and other agents have been taken prisoner. Ruby is devastated that she might lose Cate as well.
Chapter 11-15
Over the next few days the group comes up with a plan to find Lillian Grey, Clancy's mother, in search for a cure. Ruby managed to fish out the information that she was with the League's agents and Chubs and Vida get on the road to inspect the information.
Ruby and Cole train the other kids for their attack on the smaller camp first. Nico suggest that the same plan won't work for Thurmond as well and Ruby decides she had to get into the camp alone first to install a Trojan virus into their programme. She and Cole agree to not tell the others about this plan.
Ruby and Liam aren't on the best terms and furious at his brother for treating him as a brat Liam leaves the camp in search for other PSI's.
The trained group set out to free the kids from the smaller camp, in that camp is Senator Cruz's daughter. In the middle of their mission Liam joins them with another girl taking pictures. Baffled, Ruby decides to go on with their plan calmly and free the kids. They are reluctant at first to leave their cells but Ruby calls out for Senator's daughter and she is the first to step out with other kids following. Successfully completing the mission they drive as fast as they can away from that camp.
Analysis
Ruby is starting to sleepwalk. Nico informs her that there is someone accessing their computers without permission and leaking information. Maybe these two are connected...
Ruby is insecure about where she stands with Liam and it is another thing on the list of things she has to worry about.
Ruby and Clancy are playing mind games; Clancy refuses the idea of giving up their abilities because he sees it as a part of them and not a burden they have to live with, contrary to Ruby. Ruby gets an insight on the horrors Clancy went through in Thurmond, how they tested him like an animal and sees that Nico was the only one there for him. This makes her understand their relationship and try to forgive Nico.
The ghost of Thurmond is still present and haunting Ruby.
Chapter 16-20
The kids arrive at the place where the group is staying safely. Cole is furious at Liam and tells him to leave but rest of the kids side with Liam so he is bound to stay. Ruby and Liam break up.
Alice, the girl Liam brought in from the Amplify to take pictures, decided to interview the kids there. She interviews Zu and Zu has finally decided to speak in her voice to tell about her experiences from being taken to a PSI camp to getting where she is now.
Chubs and Vida brought back Lillian Grey but her mind is all messed up by Clancy. Ruby finds a way to help her and restore her memories and ability to speak. Lillian tells them that the cause of IAAN is poisoned water that the mothers were taking and it affected their children after they had them. There is no cure for IAAN, only a way to keep it controlled. Lillian wants to do the procedure on Clancy.
Cole reveals to Liam that he is a Red. Ruby and Liam get back together.
Cole and Liam set out the following day to inspect a camp of Reds close by.
Lillian wants to see Clancy. Ruby tries to make it so that she sees him but that he doesn't see her, but she fails, Clancy knows his mother is there.
Ruby is suddenly woken up by distressed Vida, Zu and Nico with news that one of the Stewart boys is dead.
Analysis
In order to get the kids back under Cole's wing he needs to make it known that he is one of them.
Zu's interview is the most striking part in these chapters as it pinpoints the real issues, that being neither the PSI kids nor the general public but the government; those who caused the IAAN in the first place, Zu is convinced by that and she experienced kindness and cruelty on both sides, and both sides are only trying their best to survive.
Chapter 21-27
It turns out that Cole is dead; they got pictures sent to them of the Reds setting him on fire as a message. There is a phone call to Senator Cruz phone, it is Liam. He is scared and talking about leaving Cole behind, Ruby tells him that Cole is dead; Liam doesn't want to tell them where he is.
Ruby blacks out and wakes up moments later with a gun in her hand pointing towards Dr. Grey. She doesn't remember how it got to this moment, she realises she is being controlled by Clancy and every time she was sleepwalking she was sending out information about their whereabouts to PSF's under Clancy's control.
Ruby tells Chubs and everyone to leave and hide because PSF's will be there soon. She goes to the room where Clancy is kept. Nico is there attacking him because of what he did, how he used Ruby. Dr. Grey enters the room as well and shoots Clancy in the shoulder and leg. Ruby takes the flash drive from Nico that contains the virus he created for their plan to hit Thurmond. She tell him to tell others when they arrive that they will go on with the plan and locks him in the room.
Ruby takes Clancy and goes out towards the PSF agents and Grey's people that already arrived. She is thrown onto the ground and bound but she is able to implant into their heads that she is a Green and not an Orange. If they knew she was Orange, they would immediately kill her.
Ruby wakes up in the Thurmond infirmary; she manipulates the doctor, agents and camp controller to believe that she is a Green. They send her of to her old cabin. She is reunited with her old friends from Thurmond. Sam tells Ruby that she missed her and that she has a feeling that they were close even though they weren't really friends. Sam appears to have a hunch about Ruby's truth and asks her to fix what she's done to her, and she does.
On the first of March Ruby sets out to the control tower to implant the virus into their system. Before that she watched the news about Dr. Grey and operated on Clancy being reunited with President Grey. He announces the plan about the cure. Ruby implants the virus into the system and is captured and tortured by agents after.
There is an attack at Thurmond and badly wounded Ruby is reunited with Liam and meets his stepfather Harry who helped them with the hit on Thurmond. Thurmond is down and PSI kids are free and reuniting with their families. Ruby is taken into hospital.
A few days later Ruby wakes up in a hospital and is greeted by her grandmother. Her parents come to see her as well and she returns their memories to them that she took away when she first started having IAAN. Soon enough, Ruby is reunited with Liam, Cate and rest of her friends.
Senator Cruz, Chubs, Dr. Grey and rest of the committee in charge discuss what to do next after the camps are down and PSI kids free. Ruby, as an act of mercy takes away the memories of torture from Clancy's mind.
Liam suddenly pulls Ruby, Vida and Chubs who are now a couple and Zu out of the building. They take a car and set out on the road because they see where the things are going, that the adults will take charge and they won't be able to be free despite their efforts. So their choice is to go on open road and see where it takes them.
Analysis
Ruby is once again in Thurmond, and despite knowing that she is in Thurmond on a mission, the ghosts of past haunt her. In a climactic attack on Thurmond Ruby is finally free of his shackles, both physically and mentally and decides to walk out of there on her own feet despite being barely able to stand.
In a discussion about the further fate of the PSI kids it appears that they will never be free despite their efforts if they don't take charge into their own hands, fear will always exist. Seeing where the things are going, Liam and the group decide to take their fate into their own hands and set out on open road.
