“But most of all, he thought about Teresa. He couldn’t get her out of his head, even though he hated her a little more with every passing moment. Her last words to him had been WICKED is good, and right or wrong, to Thomas she’d come to represent all the terrible things that had happened. Every time he thought of her, rage boiled inside him.” 

Teresa is an important driving figure for Thomas throughout the novel. This particular quote represents what Thomas has focused on during his time in the padded room. He is angry at WICKED, but he is even angrier at Teresa. Her betrayal hurts him more than the injustice performed by WICKED. Trust is the most important thing for Thomas.

“I know we’ve lied to you. Often. We’ve done some awful things to you and your friends. But it was all part of a plan that you not only agreed to, but helped set in place. We’ve had to take it all a little farther than we’d hoped in the beginning—there’s no doubt about that. However, everything has stayed true to the spirit of what the Creators envisioned—what you envisioned in their place after they were…purged.”

Thomas thinks of the Rat Man as evil, however, throughout the novel, it is apparent that the Rat Man believes in his mission and believes it is being done for the greater good. This passage exemplifies WICKED’s beliefs and hints at what Thomas and Teresa set in motion before they had their memories taken away from them.

“Thomas took off his nasty clothes and got to work making himself human again.” 

The human condition is questioned and contemplated in different ways during the book, but this quote plays into Thomas’s state of mind. Before this moment, he was stuck in a padded room believing that he was sick and that the anger he felt toward WICKED and Teresa was a symptom of the Flare rather than the reality. He becomes human by shedding what he wore during the time he believed he was infected, and therefore, not human.