A fist whistled by her ear, and she ducked, rolling under the follow-through and coming up behind her opponent. He turned to meet her, blocking her attack and landing a solid blow on her stomach. The hit knocked the breath out of her and sent her sprawling on the ground.

Dylan held out a hand, helping her up again. "You're still clumsy."

"I can tell. My brain knows what to do, but..."

"It's okay. You never had any combat training as a child. I didn't expect you to be perfect."

"Just better. I'm sorry. This will make things more difficult if we get caught," Wren said, sitting down on the park bench and sighing.

Dylan sat next to her and gave her an encouraging grin. "Don't worry about it too much. You still know how to sneak around quite well," he told her. "So just don't get caught."

She smiled. "Wise advice."

"You look like you could use some relaxing," he observed.

"I can't just relax. Akram could crack time travel at any time, or figure out that we did, or both. If we don't stop him soon..."

He held up a hand. "Trust me, I understand that. But right now he hasn't cracked time travel, and we aren't in imminent danger. So taking a bit of time to relax isn't out of the question. And I have an idea about that."

She turned her heard to face him and raised a brow. "Really? What kind of idea?"

"The kind that involves laser tag."

***

They emerged from the laser tag arena laughing. Dylan had paid for several games, and they'd gone with Anne and Andrew. It ended up being girls vs. boys, which was a pretty even match up. The boys' team won one more game than the girls', which stung, but Wren accepted it, tamping down her competitive side.

"That... was epic," Andrew said. "You got good at this really fast, Amanda."

Wren grinned at him. "I know. I..." she trailed off and frowned. How had she know to use the gun like that? When did she learn?

Dylan glanced at her and saw the look of confusion on her face. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No I'm fine. Come on, we should get home. Mom would annoyed if we were late."

Andrew laughed and turned to Dylan. "You should have seen the look on her face when Amanda asked about this. I'm pretty sure Mom thinks Amanda is in love."

Wren bit her lip and glanced at Dylan. In love? That's taking it a bit far... she thought. But I do like him.

Dylan laughed. "I'm not surprised. Your mom seems a little bit strict."

"Her and Dad both, but we don't mind. It's because they don't want to see us hurt, and that's fine with me," Andrew answered.

The piled into the truck Dylan had driven them in and headed for home. The whole way back Wren puzzled over her memory loss. Dylan noticed, and once Anne and Andrew had gone inside, he tapped her shoulder, pulling her from her thoughts.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "You've been weird since we came out of the arena."

"It's probably nothing," Wren said. "But I just... I've been trying to remember how- and when- I learned to use a gun."

He frowned. "You can't remember?"

"No. It's like the memories were erased or something. But I was sure I learned. Does this have something to do with the time travel?"

"Probably. I didn't think the side effects would happen so soon though."

"But why memory loss?" she asked, leaning back in the seat. Her hand went to her throat, where a little silver cross necklace hung. She played with it almost without even realizing it.

Dylan thought about that for a moment. "It's possible," he mused, "that we did something to change the future. But since the future is still fluctuating, you don't have any memories from there anymore."

"Why didn't it happen to you?"

"I... don't know. I'll have to think about that one. Maybe the effects just haven't hit yet. Either way, I think we should look at this as a good sign. Hopefully, this means something we're doing is changing things... for the better if we're lucky."

"Okay, well I should go in. I'll see you tomorrow," she said, and climbed out of the truck.

She watched him drive away, and Andrew's words came back to her. "I'm pretty sure Mom thinks Amanda is in love."

"I'm not in love," she muttered. But when she thought about him, she wasn't so sure that was true.