I wielded a padded toy sword and pointed it at Tisa, who gripped her own with white knuckles. “On your guard,” I said.

She made a little scowl, then attacked. I blocked a couple blows, then let her hit my shin. I dropped to one knee, and she smacked her sword on my shoulder with a battle cry.

“Ahhh, you got me…” I collapsed onto my back.

She roared and pounced on me, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending a shooting pain through my lower back.

“Tisa!” Sana scolded from her seat at the dining table. “Don’t play so rough.”

“You okay there, Genet?” Nal asked.

Wincing, I carefully pried Tisa off me as she kept roaring like a little monster, whacking her sword on my arm. “I’m fine.”

“Really?” Sana asked. “Because you’re bleeding on my rug. Come on.”

“Tisa, that’s enough,” Nal snapped.

She shot him a glare and slumped onto the floor, crossing her arms.

I followed Sana through a door and down a staircase into the cleanest room I’d ever seen. Spotless counters lined the walls with cabinets hanging above them. A couple medical beds sat at either end of the room with perfectly smooth white sheets.

“You’re a doctor,” I said.

“I am. Sit over there.” She pointed to one of the beds. “Nal often comes home with some injury or other, so I set up this room.”

“I wondered where he was getting stitched up.”

“I hope this room won’t see as much use from now on.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I guessed that depended what Nal wanted to do. He’d been talking with Sana all day while I kept Tisa entertained.

“Lift your shirt, if you would.” She studied my back for a few seconds. “I’ll need to take out those stitches, they’re a terrible job. No wonder it reopened.”

I held back a groan as her miniature scissors and tweezers tugged at the gash, then as she sewed it back up.

“There, that should hold. But no more roughhousing with Tisa. Doctor’s orders.”

A piercing scream came from upstairs, and I flinched. Tisa was screeching gibberish, sounding like she was being murdered.

“Calm down!” Nal shouted. “It’s fine!” But the screaming didn’t stop, and something repeatedly thudded on the floor above us like a hammer.

Sana sighed as she cleaned up her supplies. “It’s just one of her tantrums. Maybe stay down here for a little while.”

“I hate you!” Thud, thud. “I’ll kill you!”

She called that a tantrum? I was starting to worry Tisa really would kill Nal.

Sana plucked a little vial from a cabinet before hurrying upstairs. “Tisa! Tisa, here! It’s your medicine.”

“I don’t want it! Go away!”

“You get a piece of candy if you take it, remember?”

Tisa screamed bloody murder again, and it sounded like there was a struggle. “No, no! I don’t want it!”

She wailed for another few seconds, but finally quieted down. The floorboards creaked over my head while Sana came back downstairs, her hair more frazzled than before.

“Sorry about that,” she said, placing the vial back in the cabinet. “Sometimes she gets a little too excited with playtime. I should have noticed before it got out of hand.”

So excited that her parents had to drug her? I didn’t know what to say.

Sana smoothed her hair back and gave me a smile. “Come back upstairs. I’ll make dinner.”

I followed her back up, and she locked the basement door after us. Nal came down from the upper floor, retying his hair. Blood trickled from a deep scratch on his cheek.

“How is she?” Sana asked.

Nal dropped into a chair at the table, dabbing a napkin against the scratch. “She’s asleep.”

“Okay.”

“Sorry, but, how often does this happen?” I asked.

“Lately, every week or so,” Sana said in an exhausted voice.

I looked to Nal with wide eyes, but he was rubbing his forehead and didn’t notice.

I hadn’t seen Tisa’s tantrum with my own eyes, but I could guess what it looked like. It probably involved the whites of her eyes turning black, at least. Just how deep into the Rage had she gone? Were these episodes coming closer together, or farther apart? At Tisa’s age, Nal and I had our Rage under control, locked down tight until we called on it to fend off the other boys.

Tisa did not have it under control. And Nal had to know it.