Page 18 of Charged By the Razorbacks

“They don’t need wide dispersal,” Tamsin cut in. “They don’t need incendiary devices.”

Aleksy felt it click. “Direct delivery.”

Tamsin nodded once. “Exactly.”

Jarek’s voice dropped. “How?”

Tamsin’s lips curved faintly. “Think smaller, contained. Focused. Directed.”

Her gaze moved across them.

“Think a weapon that doesn’t explode outward,” she continued. “But delivers exactly what it’s carrying into exactly what it’s aimed at.”

Aleksy’s jaw tightened.

“If they stabilize it...” he said slowly.

Tamsin finished it for him. “They can create incendiary-level weapons that target a specific type of shifter.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “Not collateral damage. Not wide-scale destruction.”

Then the truth settled fully into the room.

“Targeted,” she repeated quietly.

And this time—there was no mistaking what that meant.

“Targeted shifter targeted shifter genocide.”

****

Targeted shifter targeted shifter genocide.

The word didn’t echo. It settled into the room like something alive—heavy, suffocating, and impossible to ignore.

Jarek didn’t move. His gaze stayed locked on Tamsin, like he could protect her from Chimera and any other crazy fuckers dumb enough to target her if he watched her closely enough.

She didn’t flinch or soften the impact of the word. She simply told the truth as it stood and left it there.

“All right,” Victor said finally, voice low, controlled, cutting through the silence like a blade. “Then we stop them.”

Simple. Direct. Exactly what Jarek expected from the Bears.

Elara moved first. She stepped closer to the console again, hands braced on either side of it now, her gaze locked on the data like she could tear it apart and rebuild it through sheer will.

“They’ve altered the stability curve,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. “The degradation rate—it’s inconsistent because the compound isn’t bonding correctly with the delivery matrix.”

Tamsin nodded once. “Yes.”

It was like they were already working from the same page. The way they listened and understood each other’s role and strengths in that moment was a thing to watch.

Riley stepped in next, moving to Elara’s side, her gaze shifting between the data and the projections forming on the screen.

“Neurological overload isn’t random,” Riley said, voice steady, grounded in something clinical but not detached. “If it’s targeting specific DNA markers, then it’s triggering a chain reaction inside the nervous system itself. Her fingers hovered over the interface, not touching, just tracking. “Once it starts, the body doesn’t recognize it as an external attack. It treats it like a systemic failure.”

Jarek’s jaw tightened. “Meaning? Dumb it down for me, geniuses.”

Riley glanced at him briefly. “Meaning it is exactly how Jackson described it. As the body fights itself, no external countermeasure. No natural defense. It just ... keeps going until something gives out.”

Then Sienna stepped forward, providing a different energy. Not clinical or analytical, this one was much more strategic. Her gaze moved across the room, then back to the screen.