Petra Dax had wanted this job for one reason. Baker Park was hers to protect, and now armed men held it. She crouched behind the ranger station she used to run. Sandbags blocked the door. A warlord's flag hung where her duty roster once pinned. She counted six guards along the fishing dock. They had turned her park into a fort, and she meant to take it back. She pressed her badge flat against her chest. The stitching was faded now, but the words still read Baker Park. Three years ago she had sewn it on herself. She had cleared trash from the winding trails. She had taught kids to paddle the little boats by the water. She knew every bench and every tree. The men up there knew none of it. That was the one thing she still had. A guard walked the concrete path toward the playground. Petra waited until he passed the slide. Then she moved low along the tree line, the way she had patrolled it a hundred times. Her boot found the loose drain grate near the water without looking. She knew it was there. The guards did not. She reached the row of paddle boats tied at the dock. Her plan was simple. Cut them loose. The warlord used the boats to move supplies across the water each night. Take the boats, and she took his supply line. She drew a knife and sawed the first rope. The rope snapped. The boat drifted. She cut the second, then the third. A yellow boat spun free and knocked the next. Wood cracked against wood, loud in the still air. "Down there!" a voice shouted from the dock. Petra froze. A guard leaned over the rail, pointing at the drifting boats. Two more ran to the water's edge. She had no time to cut the rest. She shoved the last loose boat hard. It slid into the current and carried the others out of reach. Then she ran. Feet pounded the concrete behind her. She cut through the playground, ducked under the swing set, and dropped behind the sandbags she had seen them stack that morning. Her lungs burned. She pressed her back to the sacks and held still. The guards reached the empty dock. One cursed at the boats floating far out on the water. "The ranger," another said. "She's inside the park." Petra's hands shook, but she smiled. She had cost the warlord his supply boats. By morning his men would go hungry. That was her first strike, and it had landed. But the shouting spread. Torches lit along the trails she knew so well. The warlord now knew she was here, and he would hunt her through her own park. She had taken his boats. In return, she had lost her last advantage: no one had known she was coming. Now they all did.