Author's note: It's been a while since my last update. I feel the urge to apologize for the heavy handed exposition in Chapter 11, but certain things about Quetzal needed to be revealed and this Verse is already bordering on too long.

"Where were you?" Wolverine growled at Queztal.

She was trying to wrap a bandage around her left wrist. "Out."

"With who?"

She held the bandage in place and wrapped around it with tape. "That's a very logical question for someone who doesn't trust someone else to ask."

"Which is why I'm asking it."

Quetzal finished the taping. It was a sloppy job but it would keep the wound from being infected. "Then you wouldn't believe any answer I gave you so why should I bother giving you one?" She tried to keep her voice light but there was venom underneath her tone. "What did I ever do to make you think I can't be trusted? I'll tell you flat, I'm loyal and reliable. I'd never do a thing to hurt my friends."

Wolverine moved between her and the door. "You really think your word means a damn thing? I think you've been lying to us since you got here."

She reacted as if he'd slapped her. She didn't like being called out like that. He continued to push, to keep her off-balance. "What happened to your wrist?" He made a move to grab it and she pulled her hand away.

"I was in a fight. I was bit."

"You get in a lot of fights."

The uneasiness left her body language. The expressionless mask fell across her face. "Especially when I pick them." Quetzal shrugged. "I don't like drug dealers near places where kids hang out. If I goad him into taking the first swing then what happens after that is self-defense, not assault." She folded her arms and leaned against the wall. Her half-grin exposed one of her small fangs. "My daddy always said 'Baby, it's important to use your words to get what you want."

Wolverine picked up on the subtext of that immediately. She was going to goad him into taking the first swing. She wanted him to take that first swing because it made her position defensible.

Her eyes glittered in eagerness as she watched him plan his next move. And despite her relaxed posture her heart rate jumped and her pupils dilated. She was spoiling for a fight.

"This isn't over," he growled and turned to stalk away.

But he overheard her muttering a parting shot. "I'm sure it isn't."

Quetzal's stomach unclenched as Wolverine walked away. "I'm sure it isn't," she muttered to herself, a reminder that she had to be cautious. Even she had to admit, her behavior over the past day and a half was pretty sketchy.

She'd warned him now, if he had the sense to pick up on it. She wasn't going to start any fight, but by heck she'd finish it. And such a good job of keeping her cool too, even after he tried to bait her by calling her a liar. She was wise to that trick, and now he knew that. A confident posture helped when her knees threatened to start quivering.

Granted, she hadn't told the truth in its totality, but that wasn't the same as being a liar.

Quetzal did her best to shake off the confrontation. It had threatened to ruin her appetite, but after the distance she'd flown she was ravenous.

Beast was not surprised to find Quetzal in the kitchen. "You need to tell them," he said without preamble.

Her mouth was stuffed with a sandwich. "Uh?"

"You need to tell the others about being a construct, about the operant conditioning, about everything."

She shook her head. "This wouldn't be an issue if I were a normal atyp. You'd just chalk it up as one of my quirks."

"That doesn't matter, because you aren't a normal atyp."

Quetzal peeled the bread off her sandwich and started tearing it apart in her claws.

"Logan's been telling everyone you need to go. If you don't start opening up you're going to be out on your own."

Quetzal opened her mouth like she had a response but snapped it shut.

"Why did you ditch him in the city? What were you trying to hide?"

He expected her to hide behind the emotionless porcelain mask again. But her eyes narrowed in obvious irritation. "I was pissed. Still am. I shouldn't have to account for every moment of my life. I don't need to justify myself to him. Or to you."

"At this point Quetzal, you really do."

"I don't want to be known as a combat model!" Quetzal all but yelled. Her claws dragged against the formica of the counter, scratching it. After a few ragged breaths she spoke in a much lower volume. "It's not who I am."

Beast rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "Of course it isn't." He did feel an enormous amount of sympathy for her. It was hard enough being a mutant teen on the verge of adulthood. To be separated from what was evidently a very close – but paranoid – family on top of that, it was no wonder that she was floundering. God knew what sort of issues that being a construct might add to that. "You said it yourself Quetzal, if you're in trouble the X-men can help. But you have to let us. You're actively making it very difficult. You have to trust us."

"They won't let me practice with the kids anymore. They won't let me do anything. I know what happens. What you were designed for becomes your whole identity as far as others are concerned." Her eyes narrowed. "Then come the tests."

Beast remembered the reaction she'd had the first time he'd suggested that her home town might not be the best representation of tolerance. "The X-men are different Quetzal. It won't be like that." He smiled at her. "Don't think the worst of us. Give us a chance."

Quetzal picked at the remains of her sandwich pensively, hiding behind the mask again.

Quetzal picked at her food as she turned the problem over in her head. The Creature was stirring in the back of her head. It sensed rising threat and had been "pacing" uneasily, not trying to escape, but ready to take control if needed.

The Creature wasn't the problem. She could keep the Creature contained. The Creature was predictable, violent and dangerous, but predictable.

She didn't know how the X-men would react though. That was unpredictable. Back home in Asylum people knew, everyone knew. But Asylum was different. Asylum's purpose was to hide the dangerous things. And they'd become accustomed to the first construct who took up residence there, Iggy. Iggy had convinced them that she was nearly as normal as the rest of the residents. And if she had more than the usual number of quirks, she had an earnest and good heart.

People in Asylum didn't care about what she and her sister were or weren't designed for. Half the citizenry there had defied what they seemed to be fated for, the dos Santos girls had unusual genetics, but their secrets made them average. You didn't ask certain questions in Asylum.

Quetzal took a deep breath, prepared to talk around the matter, to once again emphasize that she was not going to tell them that she was a construct and that she was regretting having ever told Beast.

Before she exhaled childhood memories flooded into her head.

Sherriff Sean sat across from Quetzal, looking at the machine. "Remember, only yes or no answers."

Quetzal nodded.

"Is your name Quetzal?"

"Yes." The electrodes were itchy. She tried to ignore them.

"Are you a construct?"

"Yes."

The needles moved, calling her a liar. Sean looked up and smiled at her. "That's good kiddo."

She didn't acknowledge him, concentrating on her heart rate and other biorhythms.

"Are you Abraham Lincoln?" he asked.

"No."

The needles remained steady. As far as the lie detector was concerned she was the sixteenth president.

Sean turned the machine off. Quetzal had mastered fooling the lie detector faster than any other child he'd taught, except for her sisters. "Your dad still telling you to never lie?"

"He is."

Sean shook his head. "Well, I'm not go against what your da tells you to do but I still think it's not the smartest idea."

Quetzal shrugged. "Dad says I'm not good at lying. Probably never will be."

"Your sisters wouldn't melt butter in their mouths."

"They're a different design. Infiltrators would need that kind of imagination. I'm an assault design. My brain doesn't work that way." She was only twelve. That was the age where Sean started working with the kids, teaching them to lie to authority figures.

"Well work with what you got I guess." He smoothed his thinning hair back into place. "I'm going to teach you a new trick today."

"Can I take the electrodes off? They itch."

"Sure."

"This is a simple trick. Sometimes to keep a big secret, tell a little secret. Like, say you blew up a building and that you also smuggled a trunkful of guns across the border."

"Did I kill anyone in the explosion?" she got hung up on details sometimes.

"Took out all the primary targets and acceptable levels of collateral damage."

She nodded.

"Now when you get pinched, let's say you get a real hard case of a cop. And he says, 'You look guilty. I can smell guilt all over you. You blew up the building; you're going to confess before you leave.' And assuming he means it, what are you going to do?"

She shrugged. "He wouldn't be able to tell. You say I've got good control of my microexpressions."

Sean wondered if all constructs were so literal or if it were just the Chimera stock. "For the sake of the exercise Quetzal, pretend he can tell you're guilty about something."

"If the collateral damage was an acceptable level then I wouldn't feel guilty."

"And you probably wouldn't get caught either," Sean said. "Just play along okay?"

Quetzal frowned but nodded.

"By making an appropriately wrought out confession of the weapons smuggling, it will help alleviate some suspicion about the larger charge. Think of it as an alibi for emotional behavior." He looked at the clock. "I guess that's enough for today. You better head off to Yelena's. And tell your da that I need him to come by and check on Nell. She's still favoring her front right leg."

"I will." Quetzal grabbed her jacket as she darted out the door.

Quetzal exhaled. For a second she had sunk into her own internal world, thinking about something. With a determined look on her face she got up out of her chair and stalked out of the room.

"Quetzal?" Beast called after her. "What are you doing?"

She was nearly through the door and didn't stop. "I'm going to tell them," she said without turning back. "That's what you wanted isn't it?"

Beast had to scramble in a rather undignified fashion to catch up with her. She was walking at a stiff doubletime clip.

"You're making the right choice," he assured her.

She grunted.

Quetzal strode down the hall. She was mad, mostly at herself. She was going to have to tell one of her secrets to protect the others. But it didn't have to happen. Nobody had inquired about the provenance of her DNA, she had flipping volunteered the information. It was naivety she realized now. Too much experience with people who meant it when they said they could keep a secret.

Beast hadn't meant to spill the secret to Jean. Technically he hadn't said anything, just thought about it loudly.

So Quetzal had no one to blame but herself. She had broken the seal first.

A mistake isn't all bad Baby, her dad would say. As long as you learn from it.

That didn't make it easy to swallow. And it didn't matter if she learned from it because this wasn't a mistake you could take back. The X-men were a heroing group, they shared information with other heroes as needed. It would likely end up common knowledge before long. Only a matter of time before a pseudo-governmental agency or private force would want some of her for testing, to figure out how to duplicate the technology.

"Where are they?" Quetzal growled to cover the fact that her knees were about ready to buckle.

"Why don't you go wait in the sunroom," he suggested. "I'll get the others."

"Hurry. I want to get this over with."

He smiled at her. "It will be okay Quetzal."

Quetzal waited in the sunroom. She seriously considered just walking out the front door as she passed it. There was a large world out there. And she thought about what Sabretooth had suggested, that she leave and go audition.

Not exactly an altruistic suggestion, she thought.

Quetzal tried to watch the clouds go by through the sunroom window, but her mind kept drifting. She entertained the fantasy of flying away. Of being on stage, singing and dancing in front of thousands. The idea was appealing.

"Come on along and listen to," she sang softly. "The lullaby of Broadway." She giggled to herself and stopped abruptly, there was a sharp pain in her chest. It faded quickly and she rubbed her sternum as the echo of the pain faded. No time for daydreaming. Quetzal had to anticipate what they would ask her and how she would answer. There was still so much to hide.

She could change her mind. She could tell them she'd met with Sabretooth. But the first question would be "why." Quetzal didn't have an explanation for it that they would like. It would quickly open up questions that could lead to Asylum and what it was.

Better to endanger herself than to endanger her home.

When she heard the door open she tasted Beast, Cyclops, and Wolverine on the air. When she turned around she wasn't surprised to see Jean and Storm as well. The whole command staff.

"I'm a genetic construct," Quetzal said. She was a believer in ripping of the bandage as quickly as possible. "And the first time I hear anyone say 'Frankenstein' this conversation is over."

"So you've been augmented?" Scott asked. "By whom?"

"I'm not a mod, augie, synth, or cyber. I'm a levite," Quetzal said. "A construct. Designed and assembled from gene one. In my world the pinnacle of the Cold War was the genetic arms race. And the pinnacle of the genetic arms race was me." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm a Chimera, that's a Soviet design. My model type was built for quick insertion and heavy combat. Any questions?"

"How does a soviet bioweapon end up in the middle of nowhere Texas?" Wolverine asked, trust him to latch on to that right away.

"I've told you, my father was special forces. His last mission was the destruction of a soviet genetics lab where they were creating Chimeras. At the end of the whole Chimera mess there was one egg left, mine. He didn't want to destroy it so he smuggled it back to the middle of nowhere Texas. Raised me like his own flesh and blood."

Cyclops had a different question bothering him. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"Are you going to let me continue rehearsals with the kids?"

". . . . Maybe." But he clearly meant 'no.' It was easier for him than an outright deception.

"You don't want a weaponized construct who may or may not have operant conditioning around the kids. But you had no problems with it when you thought I was just a violent atyp. That's one reason why I didn't say anything."

"I wouldn't say I had no problem with it," Scott said. "But you being a . . . . military construct is . . . . different. I'm not saying you're uncontrollable, but the damage you're capable of inflicting . . . I'd hate for anyone to accidentally trigger you."

The slow burn was building again. There was a pressure building in her chest. That was new. A few deep, controlled breaths and the pressure faded. "I don't have any triggers. I never got any operant conditioning. No post hypnotic commands. I was raised in a home like a normal kid." Quetzal held up her hands. "That's all the more I'm gonna talk about it. I don't want to discuss it. I don't want to be checked out or cured. And I especially don't want any investigations into triggers I don't have."

"That's not reasonable," Storm said. Her voice carried the usual tone of command. "This changes a great deal."

"It doesn't change a goddamned thing!" Quetzal shouted. Her whole face was red. "I'm as human as any of you are!" Her emotional control had completely cracked. "I'm the same person I was last week!"

"Fair enough," Wolverine said. "We've all got things in our pasts we don't want looked at too closely."

Quetzal lost the urge to yell and tried to kick her brain into overdrive. He wasn't on her side, so why was he pretending to be?

Before the conversation could continue Quetzal experienced another stabbing pain in her chest. The worst pang yet. She yelped in pain and dropped to her knees. It wasn't fading this time. She curled over herself and cringed, trying to keep from crying out again. Blood drained from her face and her skin was clammy.

Large paws wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her up. "Quetzal? What's wrong?"

"Pain," she panted. "In my chest."

He helped her up. "Let's get you down to the medical bay."