| “ | “Ghosts don't haunt people -- their memories do.” | ” |
–Ruby, in Never Fade | ||
Ruby Elizabeth Daly is an orange woman. She is one of the few survivors of President Gray's extermination plan for oranges and she is one of the many survivors of the Thurmond rehabilitation camp and played a major factor in the destruction of the camp system that held most of the psi population. Ruby is also one of two creators of Haven.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Ruby was born in Charlottesville, Virginia on January 13th, but raised in Salem, Virginia and had an average early childhood and was an average child. She was eight years old when Michael Everhart died of IAAN, and the disease became a prevalent threat. She was not aware of how badly things were going on in her country since her mother refused to allow a television into the house and she had no siblings or cousins to watch die around her. The school also kept it covered up, but it was blown when Grace Somerfield died. A month after Grace's death, half of the fourth grade class was dead and she was the only kid on her block.
When she was nine years old, she developed her abilities. She could control people minds and could hear the thoughts of others. She was unique amongst the known oranges, since she could create, manipulate, and destroy peoples memories.
The night before Ruby's tenth birthday, her parents got into an argument about her birthday celebration, which her father made her mother cancel. Oblivious to the tense atmosphere, Ruby asked if death would be painless, which ended up in another argument, which escalated quickly, scaring Ruby enough that she retreated into her room. That night, Ruby went into her parents' room and kissed them on the head as a way of apologizing, however she unknowingly erased all their memories of her.
When she woke up the next morning she quickly realizes that her parents no longer remember her. Out of fear, her mother then locked her in the garage and her dad contacted the police, however the Psi Special Forces in the area got there first, taking her with them. They bring her to Thurmond, the first and largest rehabilitation camps.
As Ruby is being unloaded from her bus, she notices the kids who were there before her, and she notices how all of the kids are treated by the colored 'X' on their backs. Ruby watches as one of the older boys on her bus uses his orange abilities to force a PSF woman shoot herself in the head and creates an opportunity for escape, but she does not take it. He and all other children are quickly restrained and are sent into a testing center in order to determine their color classification. As she is waiting to be tested, she befriends a girl named Samantha Dahl. She is eventually brought into the testing room, and is quickly tested by the doctor. She is discovered to be an orange.
The doctor moved to restrain her, but she quickly latches onto his arm and she peers into the mans mind. Using his memories to figure out the color classification and which ability went along with each color. Upon figuring out that she was an orange, Ruby instinctively uses her powers and forces the man to change her classification to green. The doctor follows her order and changes her color classification. He puts her down as a green with an enhanced intelligence. Ruby is placed into Cabin 27, which is the first empty cabin for female greens. Ruby was ironically very lucky, since she was a part of the second group of collected kids. The first group was placed in the experimentation group, and were used to find information and potentially a cure for the psi's abilities.
Ruby quickly becomes best friends with Sam, the green girl with a perfect memory placed in her cabin. The pair are best friends until an argument breaks out between the pair and Ruby accidentally removes Sam's memories of Ruby. Sam becomes best friends with another girl in her cabin, Vanessa, and Ruby goes on to not speak for eight months. The girls in cabin 27 do not figure out what happened to Sam, or what Ruby really is, until the end of the Afterlight.
Ruby gets sick two times at Thurmond. Once when she got the stomach flu and dehydration after what Sam called her Gut Puking Spectacular and the second time was for a sprained wrist.
The Darkest Minds[]
Ruby is picking weeds with the rest of her cabin in the garden when without warning the White Noise (or Calm Control) blares over the loudspeakers. This particular case of white noise was not because of some incident with an individual person or building, but a test by the Children's League to find reds, oranges and yellows hidden in the camp. Since one of the frequencies was an orange specific one it caused Ruby to be knocked unconscious and caused her nose to bleed.
She wakes up sometime later in the infirmary, where her hands are velcroed to the bed. Catherine "Cate" Connor is sitting next to her. When Ruby wakes up, Cate removes her handcuffs, and cleans her face of blood. Cate tells Ruby to call her Cate and skip the doctor business. Catherine then flat out asks about how Ruby's color selection process went. Ruby becomes worried that Thurmond knows that she's actually orange, not a green. After Cate leaves Ruby's room, Ruby discovers a note telling her that her bad reaction to the calm control means that the PSF's know she isn't green and is going to execute her tomorrow. Under the note is a package of two pills that Ruby slips in her bra. She then shoves the note in her mouth.
Ruby then goes back to her cabin and takes the two pills before bed, which causes her to have seizure-like symptoms. The girls in her cabin press the emergency button and Infirmary workers come to pick her up. She is immediately taken to the infirmary. Cate and Sarah instantly take custody of her, and dress her in nurse scrubs. Cate ties up her friend and is able to drag Ruby out of the infirmary. A PSF joins them and helps them to their car and they pull away from the parking lot at 2:45 am.
As soon as they clear the gate Ruby passes out, and wakes up at 4:30 am. She notices Martin Dunn in the back and that Cate had changed clothes. She answers Ruby's many questions and says that there were less than two hundred and fifty thousand children under the age of eighteen in the United States and that there were few cases of IAAN affected kids outside of the states. This fact sickens Ruby since she never knew of how bad things were until this moment.
Eventually Martin wakes up and messes with Ruby for awhile before the group quieted down. The three reached the cities edges of Marlinton at seven in the morning and watched as a red semi truck passed by them headed towards Thurmond. Cate decided at this moment to ask how the kids escaped, and both answered honestly. Ruby ended up being disgusted by Martin changed his way of escaping death.
Not long after they meet Cate's boyfriend Rob Meadows at a gas station. Ruby accidentally brushes up against Rob's hand, and finds out that he murdered two high level psi children that he had found hiding in a camp. Rob sends the two kids into the gas station to change. While Martin is in the bathroom, Ruby spots Suzume (Zu) Kimura taking food from the shelves and pursues her to a van called Black Betty. Zu lets Ruby into the van after some begging. After a minute, two boys appear and start the van and they all drive away, unaware that Ruby is hiding in the van.
Ruby learns that the two boys names are Liam and Chubs. Liam drives, while Chubs sits in the passenger seat. Ruby still hidden in the back of the van, under a sheet jumps up when she hears a gunshot fired at the van. Ruby knew it was Cate and Rob. Shocked, Liam stopped the car. Ruby reveals herself and since Ruby had been hiding in the back of the van, Liam almost crashes the van when she reveals herself. When the league agents finally catch up to Zu and her companions, Liam throws a tree in front of their vehicle so they could no longer keep up the group.
As the group is driving away from the crash site, she learns that her companions had been from a camp, Caledonia, Ohio. Zu had been there for two years, Chubs was there for a year and a half, and Liam had been there for a year. She is surprised with how little time they had spent at the camp, and how long she had been in Thurmond. Ruby passes out and when she wakes back up they are near Kingwood, West Virginia, and Chubs claimed she had slept for twenty four hours. The group had stopped at East River Camping Grounds, to find East River, though it was not the real one. After some exploring, Ruby and Zu stumble into a camper, Ruby finds a security camera and hits it with. a coffee pot and Zu uses her powers to destroy it.
They quickly leave, and on the drive Ruby finds out about Jack and how the government read everything posted online. After traveling for a little while, Ruby realizes that there is about to be a white noise attack and she switches the radio as loud as she could, but she was unable to stop the attack. All four kids are dragged from the van, and Liam is positively ID. Ruby, who is mostly used to the White Noise, is able to use her powers to send the group away. She grabs everyone and drives away, realizing that Zu had murdered a person on accident, and crashed two cars.
When the others wake up, Ruby is upset when they tell they had never heard White noise. Eventually the group stops at a motel for the night and Ruby learns about what really happens at Caledonia because Ruby accidentally uses her powers to see into the girls dream. She wakes up scared, before Liam is able to calm her down. Eventually they get up and start moving East, eventually stopping at a Walmart. Ruby and Liam went in first to check out the store, but were attacked by one of Clancy Grey's tribes who were using the store as a hide out.
The four kids give some detail about what life was like at East River, and make remarks that set everyone off, so while Chubs and Liam talk with the kids, Ruby and Zu track down supplies that hadn't been lotted. Later that night as Zu and Liam sleep, Ruby and Chubs talk some about their lives, and Ruby figures out that the code "EDO" that they managed to get out of the tribe meant the 540 radio station. Ruby grabs a radio and the pair listen to a recorded message that would instruct any psi listening the location of East River. Both are excited about finding the location, so they grab their friends and start heading towards East River.
Their excitement is short lived when they hear over the news about two children, most likely from Caledonia were captured and resent to a rehabilitation camp. Liam gets upset by the news, and stops the van. He leaves and Ruby follows after him, and she is able to calm him down before both return to the van.
When they get to the camp, they make the discovery that the Slip Kid is Clancy Gray. As they spend time in the camp, Zu, Ruby, and Liam get sucked into the magical fantasy of the camp, however Chubs, is less unconvinced. Ruby spends her time being trained by Clancy on the ways of an Orange and Liam on being one of the protectors of the camp. Later on, Zu leaves with her cousin and others. Towards the end of their stay Ruby and Liam begin falling for each other.
Eventually, the group come to realise that Clancy is not on their side and is really the leader of various governmental facilities. Ruby, Liam and Chubs try to escape but are caught by an old friends' father. In an attempt to protect her friends Ruby calls the Children's League. Towards the end of the book, Ruby erases all of Liam's memories of her. She does this because she fails to see any other way to make him willingly leave her and the clutches of the Children's League. He walks away from Ruby, who is now a stranger to him.
Never Fade[]
It takes Ruby six months of training to be trusted enough to be sent on a mission to find Cole Stewart, a Children's League agent who had been captured by the government and held in a Pennsylvania location. She is able to successfully able to get him out, despite an explosion.
Cole meets with Ruby and sends Ruby on a dangerous mission with her new friend, Jude, to find a valuable flash drive which Liam unknowingly took in his brothers jacket. This flash drive contains knowledge about the cause of IAAN, which is needed to stop Rob Meadow's plan to destroy the camps through children being sent as suicide bombers.
While in the midst of another mission Ruby and Jude escape from Rob Meadows. Ruby exposes Rob via her headset to the Children's League. Jude and Ruby are now on the run desperate to find Liam they almost are captured by PSF's and then encounter Vida however they escape her and find Andy a train driver who offers to take them to their location.
Thanks to Andy talking about a family member who has been taken to a camp, Ruby realizes that not all adults are against the psi race and that one day they could live in peace. Andy has to eventually stop to let the kids off the bus, and they are thankful for the ride.
They eventually find the address of Liam's house. Only to encounter Vida, who was able to find them due to the trackers inside Jude's clothes and Chubs who has become a skip tracer to keep tabs on Ruby, Liam, and Zu. They both join Ruby and Jude in their quest to find Liam and the flash drive. Some events occur and Ruby returns and restores Liam's memory. When they are supposed to to meet up with Cate it was actually Clancy and Nico who hacked Vida’s phone. They take Clancy hostage and go back to the HQ, where they find Cole and Cate and the kids. The president decisdes to bomb Los Angeles shortly after, and Jude dies.
In The Afterlight[]
In the last book, Ruby emerges as a fully developed character. She has is sad and depressed as a result of Jude's death in the previous books. She's instrumental in the grand plan to end the camp system. She pushes herself throughout the book to free the kids and help her friends. She stops Nico and goes back to Thurmond herself after her best friend's death(Cole Stewart)to take down the system from inside. Ruby is successful and proudly walks out of the prison which abused her for years. The book ends with her restoring her parents' memories and taking away Clancy Gray memories of his unfortunate past (thanks to the cure, he loses his powers), and reuniting with them before going on another adventure together with Liam, Chubs, Zu and Vida.
The Darkest Legacy[]
In The Darkest Legacy, it is revealed that Ruby goes in hiding after her father was shot in an attempt against her. She spends her time rescuing other kids and especially helping reds. Ruby is missing for the major part of the book. She appears only in flashbacks and once in the present. We learn that she had been deeply troubled before she left (“She’s cold,” Owen said. “She’s so cold.”). It's later revealed that Ruby was kidnapped in her mission to find a dangerous trafficking group. Zu is successful in finding Ruby who had been taken in by Leda Corp. She's fully conscious by the end of the book and Chubs fulfills his best friend duties by looking after her.
Personality[]
Ruby appears passive and also appears as smart, but she proves otherwise when she and Martin were hiding in a car together. She thinks about "breaking his fingers" but decides not to because he might have made her think that (since he is an Orange) and wants her to get mad. Also, when Liam made her drive to the car while he made a tree fly in front of their followers, she screamed at him but drove the best she could. She is smart and rational. She thinks things through and stays relatively calm during pressing situations. She has kept her true color secret from everybody for more than 6 years. She lies very easily and doesn't do things without thinking them through. She has a lot of demons but always looks past them when it comes to protecting her friends or gaining justice. She considers herself a monster and tries not to get too close to people for fear that she will end up hurting them or herself in the end.
Physical Description[]
Ruby is described to have long unruly (and often tangled) hair, which is a dark brown color, close to black. Her eyes are striking pale green color, and she describes them as big and "sleepy" looking. Her face is round shaped, and she has dark thick brows, and full lips. She is, at five feet and five inches, of average height and is described as extremely thin, ("so damn skinny I could see bones in my chest I didn’t know existed", in her own words) as a result of having been malnourished for six years while at Camp Thurmond. In Through The Dark, Sam says, "Ruby had been so stark when we were younger: black hair, white skin. Thin limbs and sharp joints." The difference in Ruby's character is noticeable by the end of In The Afterlight ("I could see thoughts moving behind her hard eyes, not fear.")
Relationships[]
Cole Stewart[]
Ruby and Cole relate to each other as both of them have similar and extremely strong powers. Cole's nickname for Ruby is "Gem". Through the course of the series, they begin to trust each other and soon become best friends. Cole's words of encouragement and bravery come back to Ruby in one of her most difficult moments and act as a guiding light. Ruby keeps his dream alive by helping other kids like Cole even after he turns to dust. Cole is a red.
Liam Stewart[]
Liam Stewart (best friend/boyfriend/partner/ husband/love of her life)