This is it

Chapter 6

If he was honest, he'd never felt better. But he didn't want to be honest, and he certainly wasn't going to let that happy feeling take hold. What had he been thinking? How could he have let it come to this? He'd gone way too far last night and scolded himself for it. It ate at him. His stomach was in knots again, he hadn't eaten, couldn't. His body ached for her, longed for her touch, needed her to be close to him. His mind resented these notions. He'd let her touch his scar! He hated and cursed himself for letting her in. Letting her get so close.

It wasn't even about the sex. He'd had several quick shags this past year after his arm had been shredded off by that Bristleback. He also resented Laro for being right. He just needed to get it through his thick skull, he'd said. And it was leaking in, which is where the problem lay. The old fears and voiced crept back up, maimed, useless, half a man. He heard Tekotteh's words echo in his mind "You were a great warrior once – but that was then." He huffed angrily, yelled a resentful "Fuck!!" once more and paced the length of the path he'd created, back and forth, back and forth, deep in the woods in the foothills to the north of the Base. He'd walked aimlessly for hours in the dark, down the mountain to the valley below. He'd never been there before, thus stumbling across a herd of Fire Bristlebacks, he now kept a close eye on, a safe distance away.

He remembered her warm body next to him, soft, tugged into him, her hair spilling over his chest, her breathing quiet and slow in sleep. He'd wanted to turn around, onto his side, to wrap both arms around her, hold her, protect her, never let her go. But he couldn't. There was nothing. And as if mocking him his stump had begun to twitch in agreement. Get a grip man! What are you thinking? Get real! So he'd carefully unfolded from beneath her, covered her warmly, found his briefs and silently left her room. He'd sat on his bed, head in hand, listening to Erend's deep and throaty snores, until he couldn't take it anymore. His anger rose, like bile. He needed to kill something. If he was going to stay here, he'd break that fucking Oseram's skull. He had dressed, fastened his armor, grabbed a spear from his gear and had headed out.

He'd managed to kill a fox and a peccary boar, which he now needed to figure out how to get those back to Base. Turning his back on the Bristlebacks, he made his way back up the way he'd come to where he'd left the animals.

The only way out was to forget what had happened, he reckoned. To not let her come close to him again. He was here for a job. Nothing more. He needed to remember that. Get that through his thick skull. Forget about his fucking dick and that irrational mind of it.

He found the place he had hidden the kills, pulled out the fox first, succeeded in securing it to his belt, then knelt to heave the boar onto his shoulder. This was going to be a hard trek.

Atonement for his weakness.