Page 16 of Charged By the Razorbacks

That shifted the room.

“What exactly did you build?” Rafe asked, voice measured, eyes locked on Tamsin now.

Tamsin pushed off the table, stepping closer to the console, her movement controlled despite the way her shoulder tightened slightly.

“I built a delivery system,” she said. “Something that could carry a compound directly to a target, bypass environmental variables, and trigger on specific biological markers.”

A beat.

Then—

“Safely.”

The word hung there, and Aleksy knew that it was an important and deliberate use of the word.

“Safely how?” Dorian asked.

Tamsin glanced at him. “Precision that can come with the level of skills I have. Controlled detonation. Limited radius. Designed to affect only what it was programmed to recognize.”

Aleksy’s brow furrowed slightly. “That’s quite specific,” he said.

Tamsin’s gaze flicked to him. “Yes, and demolitions have to be specific. Otherwise, I’m just blowing shit up.”

Aleksy couldn’t stop the small grin that came with the sarcasm she served with that line.

Elara stepped forward again, slower this time, like she was approaching something volatile.

“There are elements here I don’t recognize,” she said, voice quieter now, more focused. “Additions to the formula—this layer—”

She tapped the screen.

Tamsin nodded. “That’s the targeting matrix.”

Elara looked at her—understanding flickering. “You built that?”

“Yes.”

“What does it do?”

Tamsin’s expression didn’t change. “It allows the compound to identify specific DNA sequences. Biological markers. Genetic signatures.”

“Meaning?” Victor pressed.

Tamsin didn’t soften it. “It can be programmed to affect one species and ignore everything else.”

Silence.

Then—Jackson spoke. “They used that on me.”

Aleksy’s gaze snapped to him. Jackson’s jaw tightened, his posture shifting just slightly—not weakness, not fear—memory.

“It didn’t feel like poison,” he said. “Didn’t feel like anything I’ve had before. It was like my body just... turned on itself.” His fingers curled. “Seizures, I couldn’t stop, couldn’t fight. Just—stuck in them. And no memory of them when I came to.”

Aleksy’s jaw tightened. He remembered watching a man he referred to as a brother convulse uncontrollably on the ground.

The room had gone still again.

Caleb stepped forward. Grounded. Like he always was.