Monster

Summary: We stopped checking for monsters under the bed when we realized they were inside of us. "I don't know you but I know what you did to her."

A/N: Playlist for this story includes: Monster by Paramore, Holy Water by Big and Rich, We Build Then We Break by The Fray, and Fix You by Coldplay.

Part One- The Monster

What is a monster? Is it a figment of a child's imagination; the thump in the night, the evil lurking beneath the bed? Or is it a piece of a soul that is rotting away inside us, too dark and too sinister for us to accept? Can it be innate in each of us, programmed into our very DNA? Or are we shaped by our environment?

For some, that little piece of the soul can easily be over-looked or hidden until we grow old and die. That dark spot dying with us, unfulfilled. For others, it is a cancer that is ever spreading larger; enveloping the good that was there long before someone even realizes they had a choice.

Joey Ramiro was just such a person. In his case, it's not clear whether it was genetics or the environment. Perhaps, it was a bit of both or maybe he never even had a chance.

Once, when he was dispatching a person for his boss, a gang leader by the name of Ronnie Minnelli, the man cursed him, calling him a "godless bastard whoreson" and Joey paused for a moment to consider the man before him.

"Well, ya. Ise guess that sums it up." He told the man, just the smallest bit surprised before he let him go, watching with cold, dead eyes as the man disappeared into the depths of the East River. Briefly, he wondered how the man had pinned him so easily. Buried in his past was a faint memory of the woman who had been his mother, a prostitute who had been raped by the man who was legitimately his father. Joey only knew that his father had been killed sometime later, as retribution from her hustler for not paying for (and knocking up) his best girl. Does a person ever really know if they're the villain? Joey didn't think he was, he didn't usually think at all. He wasn't stupid, but he did what his boss told him to do. It was what got him to be the second in command, a big thing for a man who was only nineteen. When he wasn't doing what Ronnie Minnelli ordered, he was usually doing things he liked. That mainly involved drinking, smoking, and women. Joey wasn't stupid, but he knew how to get what he wanted and if asking, bribery, or threats didn't work he didn't mind taking what he wanted.

It just so happens that on the same night that man met a watery ending, Joey took the night off to indulge in the things he liked. This decision would ultimately affect the course of his life. Whether his high-risk lifestyle played a part in his death or whether the fates had dealt him a short-hand the day he was born is as hard to determine as was the reason for the monster inside him.

A/N: Truthfully, I'm writing this to get out of my funk. Hopefully, this works. This was going to be a one shot for the lovely xxWicked Wench, but it was far too long. So, it'll be a short story. Four chapters at the MOST. Just so you know, it WILL be kind of graphic in the next chapter.

Truly,

Joker is Poker with a J~

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize in this story belongs to it's respective owners and I am only borrowing to amuse myself and those who choose to read it.