Feeling sick himself, he took a few deep breaths as he first holstered his weapon, then cast a heal on himself.   When the bleeding had stopped and he felt steadier, he bent down and touched Twitch’s corpse to loot it.   Not even looking at what he received, he motioned for Helen to do the same.  When she refused, he took her hand.

“You need to do this.  I know it seems creepy.  But there may come a time when what you loot from a body is the thing that saves your life.” He pointed at the corpse, which was thankfully still face-down.  “He asked for this.  We came here to offer friendship, and he made it life or death.  You’ve done nothing wrong here.  He would have killed me if you hadn’t fired.”

She nodded, biting her upper lip.  Reaching down, she looted Twitch.  Then Allistor indicated she should loot the other man she shot as he looted his target.  They did so in silence, then headed back downstairs.  Fuzzy was waiting outside, not wanting to remain in the smelly warehouse.  Allistor cast another heal on himself, then asked Helen to take Fuzzy back to the truck while he quickly searched the main room for guns or other useful items.   The three men had only had handguns.  In a city where half the residents probably had long guns in their homes, this spoke of the men’s laziness.  Or that they preferred to steal rather than hunt.

Back in the truck, they spent some time cruising the streets of the city to decompress.  Allistor put the windows down and spoke softly to Helen about their upcoming lunch with the other survivors.  She was mostly silent in the seat next to him, gripping the door handle tightly with one hand and her rifle with the other.   Eventually, her monotone single-syllable answers became short sentences.  As his words calmed her down, she even turned to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry, Allistor.  I just… I never in my life thought I’d kill someone.  I mean, as a ranger there was always a remote possibility that a drunken camper with a gun might get out of hand.  Or a fugitive would take to the woods.  But in those situations, we would usually have backup, and be thinking arrest, not kill.”

“The fact that it bothers you is a good sign, Helen.  Along with the fact that you pulled the trigger when you needed to.  So you can take care of business, protect yourself and others, without being a trigger-happy psycho!”  He grinned as he spoke.

This actually earned a small smile from her.  “Thanks for that.”

They spent another couple hours cruising the city.  Every once in a while, Allistor honked the horn to see if anyone would respond.  They drove back out to the missile base and Helen tried cycling through the radio channels again, to no avail.  If there was anyone inside, they weren’t responding.