Plot
The novel begins with the Flock traveling to Chad in Africa. They are there to help the residents by giving them medical supplies and food, as part of the Coalition to Stop the Madness project, but are attacked by local rebels who are opposed receiving help from outsiders. After beating the rebels, the Flock proceed to do volunteer work, such as distributing rice.
On the second night, Angel reveals that 'Fang will be the first to die', causing an upset in the Flock, before Dr. Hans, a former Itex worker, interrupts. He invites Max and Angel to breakfast where introduces them to his new experiment, Dylan, a bird kid like them but someone who cannot fly well. At breakfast, it is revealed that Dr. Hans plans on forcing the human race to evolve by using the Flock as evolutionary templates. He tries to enlist Max's help by showing her the advancements he has currently made, the most extreme being cutting off and regrowing his own finger. She, however, refuses to help, and quickly returns to the Flock where she instructs them to wait.
Back in America, in the E house on the cliff of a canyon—where the Flock resided at the beginning of Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment —the members of the Flock are safe. Total is back with them after staying with Max's mother, and Max and Angel still have not spoken. Max, after deliberation, blackmails the Flock into a self-taught home school, because they need to learn things in order to understand the enemy. This leads to a trip to an unnamed museum where Iggy voices his wish that he was not blind.
Returning home, the Flock fight, and Max suddenly decides that tomorrow will be her birthday. She asks if anyone else wants to turn a year older, and so a party is planned for all of them the following day. While exchanging gifts, Jeb arrives with Dylan in a black four wheel drive Jeep as it is revealed that Dylan is unable to fly well. Max then teaches him how to fly starting with pushing him off of the roof. Afterwards, the rest of the Flock are still mad at Max. Angry at Jeb, Max flies away, and Fang goes after her. During this time, the others are attacked by Erasers, who were supposedly extinguished in Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports . It is also revealed that Dylan has been trained to fight, and can self-heal his own wounds.
When Max and Fang return, the Flock vote Max out because she and Fang were not there to help them fight the Erasers. Instead, Max and Fang were making out in a tree, causing the flock to feel they are too caught up in their relationship to lead and help the group. They both leave for Las Vegas. Meanwhile, the water supply to the house is tainted with a genetic accelerator that induces mutations. Angel replaces Max as Flock leader, and takes the new group to a celebrity party in Hollywood. They are attacked when Max and Fang find them, and are suffering from the side effects of the genetic accelerator. Jeb is shot while protecting the Flock, but survives.
After recovering, Angel leaves to join Dr. Hans as Max resumes leadership. Later, a vague letter from Fang warns Max not to follow him. Fang finds Angel and Dr. Hans, but is tranquilized, and he passes out. When Fang comes to, he is badly beaten and restrained to a bed. Dr. Hans plans to experiment on Fang with his genetic accelerator drug and injects Fang with it. However, the drug ends up causing him to die. Angel tells(through her mind) Max to come to rescue him, but when the Flock arrives, they are too late. Max desperately tries to bring Fang around, but to no avail. She finally stabs a needle of adrenaline into his chest and after a few moments, Fang is brought back to life. Then Dylan tries to kill Dr. Hans with a needle he finds, but when he realizes it is against the Flock's way to kill in cold blood he stabs himself with it in a suicide attempt, but lives.
In the epilogue Total marries Akila. Fang leaves the reception early, and when the Flock arrives back home after the reception, Max goes to look for Fang, but instead finds a letter addressed to her. Max reads the letter aloud to the rest of the Flock. In the letter, Fang tells Max that he loves her more than anything, but it is because of their love that he is leaving the Flock. He tells Max that everyone was right about them starting to only care about themselves and that it puts the others in danger he also calls Max sweetheart which surprises everyone. The rest of the Flock still needs her to be a leader and she can't do that with him around. He also tells her that he knows where he is going and to please not look for him. At the end of the letter, Fang makes a promise to Max. He says that if in 20 years, if both of them are still alive, and the world is still in one piece, then he will meet her at the top of the cliff where they learned to fly like the hawks in Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment .
After the epilogue, Max goes through Fang's files on an old laptop since Nudge is using the new one. The first thing Max sees is Fang's MaxProCon.doc showing the pros and cons of Max, such as, "She's a good leader, but a drill sergeant." In the next file, Fang is describing what happened in Africa. Then, he has his "giftlist" for everyone's birthday, and describes Max's gift. In the next file he talks about when he and Max were in Las Vegas. The file after that contains a letter to Dylan where he writes that he hates Dylan more than anyone because he likes Max and Dylan is trying to be with her. After this, a long string of questions is shown, written by a fan called "Jessie." Jessie (whose gender is not confirmed) asks such unusual questions as "Do you smoke apples?" "Would you tell us if you were gay?" "Has Angel ever read your mind when you were having dirty thoughts about Max and gone 'OMG' and you were like 'D:'?" Fang's responses range from "Uhhhh...." to "hahahahahahaha" to "I could never be as Fangalicious as you'd want me to be." He ends it by saying that he has been by Max's side forever but he now cannot be around anymore because his anger towards Dylan is "clouding my decisions" and that he does not "know what the right thing to do" is.
