Ashes of the Night

The city never sleeps, not really. Its restless streets hum with the clinks of glasses, the sputter of neon lights, and the shadows of men who’ve lost more than they ever had. That's where Brock Zane thrives — somewhere between the dusk and the dawn, when even the dead would roll over if they could smell the burning coffee from the diner where Brock spends his days. The night? That's another story.

I first met Brock ten years ago when I was just a journalist cutting my teeth on crime beats that nobody else wanted. The rag I worked for—The Gazette—wasn’t exactly interested in Brock Zane’s brand of justice, but I was. Call it morbid curiosity, or maybe just the scent of danger, but I followed him, scribbling his story like an obituary for a man who still had some fight left in him.

Brock was a diner cook by day. His hands flipped eggs, but they were the same hands that had once clutched the bars of a jail cell. What he’d done to end up there was anyone's guess, but the whispers never stopped. All I knew was that his nights were spent on a crusade of vengeance, though what or who he was hunting, no one ever knew for sure. Maybe even Brock didn't.

I remember the night of the Benson case like it was yesterday. A cold autumn evening, the kind where you see your breath long before you feel the frost. I’d just finished covering a drug bust downtown when word hit the streets about a string of arsons on the west side. Brock was already there by the time I arrived. He always had a knack for being at the wrong place at the right time.

His silhouette cut through the smoke like a knife. He didn’t wear a cape, but his leather jacket and cigarette dangling between his fingers made him look like something out of a noir film. His eyes—those eyes that saw too much—burned like embers as he stared at the crumbling remains of the Benson warehouse.

"Looks like justice’s been served, Zane," I said, trying to catch his eye. He didn’t flinch.

"Justice?" He chuckled, low and bitter. "There's no justice in this city. Only the last man standing."

That’s the thing about Brock—he didn't believe in heroes. Not anymore. Maybe he used to, but that part of him had been burned out long before I got to him. He ashed his cigarette, the last wisps of smoke curling around his fingers like ghostly chains.

Brock had a way of making you feel like you were always a step behind. He’d drop a line that would keep you guessing, like a riddle with no answer. The Benson fire was no different. People said the Bensons had it coming—something about skimming off the top, crossing the wrong people—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Brock knew more than he let on. He always did.

Later that night, I caught up with him outside a dive bar on 9th Street. The joint was seedy, the kind of place where men like Brock could blend in. I slid onto the stool next to him, the scent of whiskey thick in the air.

"You’re gonna tell me what this is really about, Zane?" I asked, though I already knew I wouldn’t get the whole story. Brock didn’t do whole stories. He gave you pieces—jagged and sharp enough to cut yourself on.

He took a slow drag from his cigarette, the ember glowing like a dying star. "You wanna know why?" he muttered, his voice low, almost as if he were talking to himself. "It's not about the Bensons. It's not even about revenge anymore. It’s about balance. This city... it takes everything from you. Leaves you with nothing but a name. So, you make sure it remembers yours."

He stood up abruptly, throwing a few crumpled bills on the bar, and walked out into the night. I watched him disappear into the shadows, the last curl of smoke from his cigarette fading into the cold, damp air.

That was Brock Zane. A man haunted by ghosts he refused to name, driven by a vengeance that had long lost its purpose. He wasn’t a hero, not by a long shot. But in a city like ours, sometimes you needed a man who could walk through the fire and come out the other side, even if he left a trail of ashes behind him.

The next morning, I found a note slid under my door.

"If you're still looking for justice, you're wasting your time. There's no justice left in this world, only revenge."

Brock Zane never signed his name, but he didn’t have to. That night, his smoke was the last thing I saw before the city swallowed him whole again.

And me? Well, I’m still here. Still telling his story. Because the city may never sleep, but as long as there are men like Brock Zane, it sure as hell won’t rest easy.