Chubs Quotes

“He's so busy looking inside people to find the good that he misses the knife they're holding in their hand.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“It feels like we should do something," he said. "Like, send her off on a barge out to sea and set her on fire. Let her go out in a blaze of glory."
Chubs raised an eyebrow. "It's a minivan, not a Viking.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“I hugged him without any kind of fear or self-consciousness, fiercely, with a rush of emotion that almost brought tears to my eyes.
"I could kiss you!" Chubs cried.
"Please don't!" I gasp out, feeling his arms tighten around my ribs to the point of cracking them.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“So thought crossed my mind," Liam said suddenly.
"That must've been a lonely journey," Chubs said flipping the pages of his book.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Miss Vida" Liam said "has anyone never told you that you are positively the whipped cream on the sundae of life?"
She glared at him."Anyone ever told you your head is shaped like a pencil?"
"That is physically impossible," Chubs groused."He'd be__"
"Actually Liam began, "Cole once did try to__ What?"
"Oh,I'm sorry," Chubs said, "apparently the middle of my sentence interrupted the beginning of yours. Do continue.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“What?" he whispered. "What are you smiling about?"
My fingers brushed against his hair, trying to smooth it down. I realized what I was doing a full minute after Liam had closed his eyes and leaned into my touch. Embarrassment flared up my chest, but he grabbed my hand before I could pull back and tucked it under his chin.
"Nope," he whispered, when I tried to tug it away. "Mine now."
Dangerous. This is dangerous. The warning was fleeting, banished to the back corners of my mind, where it wouldn't interrupt how good it felt to touch him - how right.
"I'm going to need it back eventually," I said, letting him run it along the stubble on his chin.
"Too bad."
"...crackers..." a voice breathed out behind us, "yessss..."
Both of us turned, watching as Chubs twisted around in his seat and settled back down, still fast asleep.
I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. Liam rolled his eyes, smiling.
"He dreams about food," he said. "A lot."
"At least they're good dreams."
"Yeah," Liam agreed. "I guess he's lucky.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Yes, well”—he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose delicately—“the burner phone we had accidentally fell out of the car, and someone accidentally backed over it. Because someone was in a rush after she accidentally alerted some skip tracers we were nearby when she accidentally used her abilities to move a light pole out of the road after she had accidentally backed into it.”
“Someone better shut their mouth before I accidentally slam my fist into their teeth.” She punched his shoulder, and it was almost...playful.
“Shut his mouth, fist into his teeth.”
“Really? A grammar lesson?”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight

“Just shut up and start sucking each other's faces already," Vida grumbled, leaning awkwardly against the stump. She would never admit it aloud, but I knew the burns on her back her eating her alive with pain. "I'm trying to make up for the sleep I lost when you started screeching at each other like cats in heat."
"Miss Vida," Liam said, "has anyone ever told you that you are positively the whipped cream on the sundae of life?"
She glared at him. "Anyone ever told you your head is shaped like a pencil?"
"That is physically impossible," Chubs groused. "He'd be--"
"Actually," Liam began, "Cole once did try to-- What?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Chub said, "apparently the middle of my sentence interrupted the beginning of yours. Do continue."
"I'm going to guess you probably don't want to hear about the time he pushed my head through the neighbours fence..."
"Was there a lot of blood?" Vida asked, suddenly interested. "Did you lose an ear?"
Liam held his hands up next to his ears, indicating both were firmly attached to his skull.
"Then, no" she said. "No one wants to hear your boring-ass story.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“I'll teach you later, but for now I just need someone to watch the signs for me. Come on up to the copilot chair."
I jerked a thumb in the direction of Chubs.
Liam only shook his head. "Are you kidding me? Yesterday he thought a mailbox was a clown."
I unbuckle my seat belt with a sigh. As I climbed over Chubs's outstretched legs to the front, I glanced over my shoulder, my eyes going to his too-small glasses. " Is his eyesight really that bad?"
"Worse," Liam said. "So, right after we got the hell out of Caledonia, we broke into this house to spend the night, right? I woke up in the middle of the night hearing the most awful noise, like a cow dying or something. I followed the wailing, clutching some kid's baseball bat, thinking I was going to have to beat someone's head in for us to make a clean getaway. then I saw what was sitting at the bottom of a drained pool."
"No way," I said.
"Way," he confirmed. "Hawkeye had gone out to relieve himself and had somehow missed the giant gaping hole in the ground. Twisted his ankle and couldn't climb out of the deep end.
I tried so hard not to laugh, but it was impossible. The mental image was just too damn good.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Also, screw you—maybe you can be all stealthy and break into their building to get the woman out, but I can get
us there and back safely. I did this for months and never got a second glance from anyone, including PSFs.”

“Probably because your ugly-ass face blinded them on the first look,” she muttered.”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight

“Jude was down there. He was down there. And the last place I would ever leave Jude was alone in the dark.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Are you driving this slow because you have no idea where we're going, or because you're hoping we jump out of the car & put ourselves out of our misery?”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Joseph Lister?" Liam said suddenly, cutting through the silence. "Really? Him?"
Chubs stiffened beside me. "That man was a hero. He pioneered research on the origins of infections and sterilization."
Liam stared hard at the faux leather cover of just Chubs's skip-tracer ID, carefully choosing his next words. "You couldn't have chosen something cooler? Someone who is maybe not an old dead white guy?"
"His work led to the reduction of post operative infections and safer surgical practices," Chubs insisted. "Who would you have picked? Captain America?"
"Steve Rogers is a perfectly legit name." Liam pass the ID back to him. " This is all...very Boba Fett of you. I'm not sure what to say, Chubsie.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd be up for hearing about the one-eyed chick," Vida said with a shrug.
"You are atually the worst person I have ever met," Chubs said.
"And people like you are the reason we have middle fingers.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Stay out of this, Green!” He was still wholly focused on Chubs. “What else did you tell her?
What else did she get out of you?”
I jerked back, one single word throwing me off balance.
“What did you just call her?” Chubs interrupted. Of course he had caught it, too.
“What? I’m not allowed to use her name now?” he demanded. The look on his face was ripe
with derision. “What do you want me to call you? What clever codename did the League think up for
you? Pumpkin? Tiger? Tangerine?”
“You called me Green,” I said.
“No I didn’t,” he said. “Why the hell would I call you that? I know what you are.”
“You did,” Chubs insisted. “You called her Green. You really don’t remember?”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Oh my God, Green,” I heard Chubs say from somewhere in the room. “Just take the damn socks
and put the kid out of his misery.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“You had day-of-the-week underwear growing up, didn't you?”
― Alexandra Bracken Never Fade

“I flew in on a cloud and came blitzing down from the heavens like a bolt of lightning on this kid”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“No," Chubs said, rolling his eyes. "I flew in on a cloud and came blitzing from the Heavens like a bolt of lightning on this kid.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“She shows up everywhere, at any time, like she can guess
what we’re going to do before we do it.”
“The lady is good at what she does,” Liam confirmed.
“Can you please not compliment the person trying to drag our asses back to camp?”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Oh, thank god. I saw you both on the ground & I thought you killed each other”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“If she's not alright, I'm going to rip out his heart and eat it." I nodded. "You really shouldn't eat raw meat," Chubs said.”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight

“Chubs didn’t have to finish. I knew what I’d been when I’d found them: a terrified splinter of a girl who had been shattered a long time ago. I had nothing, and no one, and no real place to go. Maybe I was still broken and would always be—but now, at least, I was piecing myself back together, lining up one jagged edge at a time.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“You had day-of-the-week underwear growing up, didn't you?”
― Alexandra Bracken

“Jude was down there. He was down there. And the last place I would ever leave Jude was alone in the darl.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“His grip on the wheel tightened as we left the limits of DC and reached the beltway. Through the blur of rain pelting the windows, we could just make out the shapes of the new highway lights and cameras that would be installed over the next few months. Right now, though, our only real sources of light were the car itself and the glow of the capital's light pollution.

"Did I really always side with him?" I wondered aloud "I swear I didn't mean to...."

Chubs risked a quick glance at me, then fixed his eyes back on the road. "It's not about choosing sides. I shouldn't have ever said that. I'm sorry. You know how I get when my blood sugar is low. He's Lee–he's funny and nice and he dresses like a walking hug."

He does wear a lot of flannel," I said. But you're those things, too. Don't make that face just to try to prove me wrong. You are."

"I don't feel that way," he admitted. "But I always got that you guys had something different. I respect that. I've never been... It's harder for me to open up to people."

The headlights caught the raindrops sliding off the windshield and made them glow like shooting tars.

He was making it sound like one friendship was better or more important than the other. That wasn't true. They were just different. The love was exactly the same. They only difference was that Liam had lost a little sister; a part of me had always felt like he wanted to prove to himself that he could save at least one of us.

"I always understood you," I told him. "Just like you always understood me.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Legacy

“On a good day, Chubs was about as threatening as a potted cactus.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“...Liam had been in the driver's seat, singing along to Derek and the Dominos' "Layla" at the top of his lungs, so off-key that it had even Chubs laughing. Zu had been sitting right behind him, moving in time with the music, her entire body rocking out to the wailing electric guitar...”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“That is the most bullshit, cowardly thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth,” he shot back. “You lied to us before about what you are, and I got it. I understand why you did it, but now… you’re out, and we can all be together again, and you’re choosing the only option that ends with us apart? Maybe Liam could forgive you for what you did, but if you go back to them, to California, I will never forgive you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Sure, we would have gotten through the blockade, maybe even miles away, but what if they got your license plate number and reported that? What if up the road there was another blockade, and they were waiting for us there? What would you have done? You’re the only one with papers; you would have been fine—but if they had taken me? Or Jude or Vida? Could you have lived with that?”

“What about Liam?” he shouted. “You know, the one whose brain you decided to fry? The one who’s lost, or dead, or near to it because you decided to screw with him? Remember him?”

Every inch of my skin felt like the branches of the trees overhead, stripped bare and coated with frost. “You do blame me.”

“Who else would I blame?” he shouted. “It’s your fault, dammit! And now you’re acting like this? Like those kids are more important to you than us? Yeah, I’ve had to make a few changes. So what? I’ve been getting on just fine making my own decisions. You keep acting like I’m still bleeding out in your hands, but I’m fine! I am better than fine! You’re the one who’s wrong! You’re—”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade