84 pages • 2 hours read
Alexandra BrackenThe Darkest Minds
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 24-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 24 Summary
Ruby begins to cry, and Liam reveals he was only joking about not recognizing her. He lifts her and carries her back to the cabin, where they talk. He says he misses her, and when she mentions Clancy, he seems taken aback she and Clancy are so close. Zu and Hina come into the cabin and tell them that they plan to leave camp to go to California that night with a small group. They plan to find Hina’s parents. Ruby and Liam are shocked by the news. When Chubs arrives, he is hurt, although Zu hugs him.
The bell to camp rings, and Clancy makes the announcement that four kids are leaving. He says no others can leave at this time because the camp’s numbers are low. Ruby, Liam, and Chubs say good-bye to Zu, who isn’t wearing her rubber gloves any more. Zu gives Ruby a note asking her to find her when everything is over. Ruby reflects on how much Zu has changed, and Zu and the others leave.
As Zu leaves, Ruby comments she ought to be with her family, and Liam responds, “[s]he should be with us” (401). Chubs suggests they follow her. He argues they should leave before anyone notices them, because the camp isn’t going to help them track down parents. Liam argues they shouldn’t leave yet, that it’s safe in East River, and that it can allow them to accomplish things. That makes Chubs angry, and he accuses Liam of wanting to be “the big hero” (402). He says Liam does things to feel good, not to help others. Liam seems like he will hit Chubs, but he doesn’t; he hits himself. Chubs continues that he never believed in Liam back at Caledonia. This is why, Chubs says, he wrote his letter to his parents, because he didn’t think he would survive with Liam in charge.
Liam and Chubs run in opposite directions. Ruby comforts Liam, and he says he thinks what Chubs said is true. She and Liam go to find Chubs, who is crying guiltily on the porch of the cabin. Chubs says it’s over.
Chapter 25 Summary
Liam begins to put his attention toward ideas for liberating the other Psi camps. Chubs and Ruby remain friends. Ruby continues her lessons with Clancy, who notices she is distracted and asks her to show him why. She tries to show him Zu leaving in her mind. He is annoyed by her lack of attention, and she apologizes. Clancy tells her he thought letting “your Yellow” leave would help Ruby, but it hasn’t (408). Ruby feels anger both that he doesn’t call Zu by her name and that he doesn’t seem to believe in her, although she also feels conflicted for having those thoughts. She walks out.
Ruby also has started to view East River more through Chubs’s eyes, seeing similarities with Thurmond. She tries to see Clancy again, but he seems to be punishing her, although she isn’t entirely clear why. Finally, Clancy calls her to see him, and he apologizes for what he said about Zu and for suggesting she wasn’t trying to learn to use her abilities. He says he was jealous she was preoccupied with Zu instead of with him because he likes her and because she is his only real friend. This information shocks Ruby. She asks him if Chubs can use his computer, and Clancy says no, as he thinks it will be a security risk. Ruby insists Chubs only wants to check in with his parents, and Clancy says he can be convinced under one condition, that Ruby teaches him to erase memories. Ruby agrees, and he says he would like to look at her memories.
He has her think of her 10th birthday morning, and then he leans in and begins touching her face. He begins kissing her, and her body goes warm and is pressed against the bed. She hears a voice in her head telling her she wants it, and she feels his hands on her. She thinks of Liam, but remembers this is Clancy, and that he is an Orange. She panics, but he prevents her from moving.
Chapter 26 Summary
Ruby wakes up anxious, in Clancy’s room, in darkness. Time has passed, and it is night. Clancy tells her she fainted, and that he shouldn’t have pressed so hard; he also says he couldn’t determine how she erases memories. Ruby feels uncertain about what happened, but she remembers Clancy making her want to kiss him. She says she wants to go find Liam. Clancy says he knows she wants Liam because he’s seen her head, but that she needs to accept that as an Orange she will always be alone. Ruby is angry at the intrusion into her privacy, and Clancy tells her she is too weak to control her abilities. He says they’re lucky to find one another, and Ruby elbows him, leaving.
She runs down a trail into the woods. Feeling repulsed that the smell of Clancy’s room is all over her, she takes her shirt off. Liam finds her, asks what is wrong, and offers her his sweater. She tells him to go away, but he persists, and she is angry that he comes closer knowing how dangerous she is when she is emotional. She accepts his embrace, and they kiss. As they do, Ruby remembers Clancy’s assault vividly. She realizes suddenly that Liam is able to see her memory, too; this is the first time her ability has worked to flow memories in the other direction.
Liam, shocked by what he has seen, asks her what Clancy did. He says he could feel her fear. She explains what happened. Shaken, he tells Ruby to pack, as they will leave tonight. She returns to the cabin and updates Chubs, and the three leave on a side trail. They are not far before they are stopped by Clancy and the other boys in charge of security.
Chapter 27 Summary
Clancy says they need to talk; Liam says they want to leave. Hayes, one of Clancy’s security team, tells them they aren’t allowed to. Liam’s friends from the watch, led by Olivia and including Mike, show up to find out what is happening. Clancy insults Liam by answering that he is attempting “another breakout” that looks “just as successful as the last” (430).
Ruby feels Clancy’s voice manipulating her in her mind, telling her to forgive him, and she discovers she wants to, taking steps toward him, but Liam and Chubs tell Clancy to stop. Clancy then turns his abilities on others around him, including Liam, telling him he is happy at East River, that he just won’t break the rules again. Chubs interrupts Clancy and speaks angrily about East River’s rules and systems, questioning the purpose of the camp, Clancy’s motives, and why they are not allowed to leave. As he talks, the other kids seem temporarily to be able to see more clearly. Clancy makes an insulting quip about assaulting Ruby, and Liam goes to hit him, but is paralyzed by Clancy’s abilities. Hayes, another youth, hits a helpless Liam repeatedly until he is badly injured.
Ruby and Chubs are forced to return to their cabin without Liam. Ruby wonders why Chubs wasn’t affected by Clancy, and she notices she hasn’t ever slipped into his head, either. Olivia brings Liam back to the cabin, and she and Chubs go get medical supplies to treat him. Ruby examines Liam’s injured face and kisses him. She says she will ask Clancy to get him and Chubs out, and he says he won’t go anywhere without her.
Ruby, anxious, tells Liam it is dangerous for them to be together and explains what happened on her 10th birthday. He says he could never forget her as her parents did, and she tells him he wouldn’t have a choice. She recalls to him that Clancy says she would never be able to really control her abilities, and Liam dismisses Clancy as a liar. He says if she wants to be with him, they will come up with a way to do it. He also says Mike is going to help them sneak away. Ruby is amazed he isn’t more scared of her, but he reassures her she is “one of us” (440).
Chapters 24-27 Analysis
In this section, Bracken focuses on two major plot developments: a serious fracturing of the former Black Betty community, as well as the revelation of Clancy as an antagonist who has been manipulating both Ruby and the East River community.
Since arriving in East River, the four former Black Betty travelers have become more distant from one another, and in Chapter 24, we see a real rupture in their small community. In Chapter 24, Zu makes the big decision to leave East River and travel to California with her cousin Hina, motivated mostly by her desire to live with her family. This is an important step for Zu’s character; Ruby observes how independent and confident Zu has become in a short time—a change symbolized by her choice to stop wearing the rubber gloves she previously used to keep from accidentally using her abilities.
However, Zu’s decision to leave seriously shakes Ruby, Liam, and Chubs. Liam and Chubs in particular don’t seem to accept that it is more legitimate for Zu to be with her biological family than with them, her created family. Their distress over Zu’s departure leads to a further breakdown between the pair. Chubs, upset that Liam won’t consider trying to catch up with Zu, tells Liam he has forgotten about the kids who followed him at Caledonia and the letter he is supposed to deliver. He also tells Liam he never believed that he could actually lead them out of camp. These are statements targeted to hurt Liam and make him feel guilty, as these are worries established as haunting Liam’s character. Although Chubs seems to regret his words at the end of Chapter 24, the Chubs-Liam friendship appears fragile. The breakdown of all of these ties, which have become a support and source of strength for Ruby, leave her feeling vulnerable to Clancy Gray, which sets up the other major development of this section.
Although there has been foreshadowing in previous chapters that Clancy may be more manipulative than he seems, he is revealed in this section as a true antagonist, someone willing to overcome Ruby’s free will for his own self-interest. In Chapter 25, he is annoyed that Ruby is distracted by feeling sad about Zu leaving during their lesson, another hint that he does not prioritize others’ feelings.
When he apologizes to Ruby later, she agrees to let him look inside her head for information about erasing memories in exchange for letting Chubs use his computer. At this moment, he appears to kiss her without consent as he enters her head, preventing her from moving, all the while manipulating her motives. Later, in Chapter 27, Ruby feels him speaking in her head, altering her thought processes again to convince her to forgive him. In these chapters, Bracken makes Clancy’s willingness to cross others’ mental boundaries seem even more unsettling by pairing it with physical, sexual assault. She also indicates that Ruby’s impressions of Clancy in previous chapters may not have been entirely trustworthy—that he has been more subtle about changing her ideas about him than she realized.
In fact, in the confrontation with Liam, Ruby and Chubs in the woods in Chapter 27, we see evidence that Clancy is using his abilities on everyone at camp. When members of his security team are skeptical or uncertain about what he has said to them, he is able to bring them back around too quickly with a single sentence. He enters Liam’s head easily and appears very likely able to convince him to stay. The only person who does not seem susceptible to Clancy is Chubs, and as the other kids hear Chubs speak out against Clancy, “the clearer their eyes became” (433). Because Clancy is evidently manipulating kids at camp on a larger scale than previously realized, this calls into question whether the impressions of East River repeated by several characters throughout the novel—that it is a happy, idyllic place for Psi kids, with a brave, good leader—are real or created by him.
