"Some people came into the world and never once looked up to see the lives around them—they were so focused on what they wanted, what they needed. No one else mattered to them. They disconnected from sympathy and pity and guilt. Some people came into the world as monsters. I understood that now."
Ruby is referring to Clancy with these words. She and rest of the group are stuck with him and don't know what to do, they have to take him to the old HQ with them. Ruby now understands what Clancy is capable of, that he doesn't have an ounce of empathy in him. Still, is she really aware of how far Clancy is ready to go to get what he wants? The answer lies to be discovered at the end.
"It was amazing, you know, how Jude had pinned us all down, how deeply he had read into who we were and what we wanted. There were people in the world whose purpose seemed to be to serve as points of connection. They opened us up to each other, and to ourselves. What was it that he had told me? That he didn’t want to just know someone’s face, but their shadow, too?"
The motif of Jude is present throughout the novel. He is a shadow that kept haunting Ruby and how she failed to protect him, but the memory of him also serves as a reminder for the group, for Ruby to be open to each other and themselves. He is a connection that holds the friends together and often times when faced with frustration a question arises: What would Jude do? What would Jude say?
"I could tell myself a thousand times, but each time my whole self would feel the shock of it all over again—because the dark was where things were lost. It devoured everything good."
Ruby is on her way to give Clancy food but she has to pass a tight dark hall to get there. She gets an anxiety attack because of the darkness because in the darkness she lost Jude who represented light and everything good.
"They want to strip you of yourself—your ability to protect and enforce your right to make decisions about your life. Your own body. Mark my words: in the end, it won’t be a choice. They’ll decide this for you.”
Clancy is talking to Ruby, who is desperate to find the cure and get rid of her abilities. Clancy makes a good point that proves to be true at the end of the novel because after all of their efforts to free the kids from the camps the adults in charge only gave them two options: do the invasive operation to suppress the abilities or live the rest of your life in a community especially designed for people like you.
