James did glance at the man and looked … mildly horrified? But he just began to run.

Saoirse felt guilty about her lie. She tried to reason with herself by bringing up the point that it's possible that this would scare the boy off such pranks and thus not have them hurt or kill anyone again, but...didn't really help all the guilt of lying to a child. She just kind of ran after the kid, trying to get as far away as possible from the guy he knocked out.

"This way," the boy shouted back at her when they got off the beach and into the town and he began leading her through the network of streets and lanes like the expert at running away that he was.

Saoirse was extremely curious about where exactly she was being led, now. She just followed after the kid in complete silence, blindly trusting him to not do anything stupid again.

[Content warning: Child neglect]

How naive. But at this moment, James was too busy running from the crime scene to make time to do stupid stuff. They reached an narrow alley between two houses and James entered, following it far to the back. There was a broken window in the wall, with most of the glass removed. James nimbly climbed through it. "In here..."

The room was small and rather dark, for lack of daylight. There were some dirty blankets on open newspapers in the corner and some ashes in the fireplace.There was a broken chair in one corner and a very smelly chamber pot underneath it. Just above the window, there was an old, stained cloth pinned to the wall, which apparently served as curtain that could be let down. The floor was dusty and dirty. And yet James sat down on the blankets and looked up at her proudly.

Saoirse carefully climbed through the broken window, though her lankiness certainly didn't make it easy for her. She wiped her hands clean on her skirt, and looked around the room. She was seriously hoping that this was just an...abandoned building or something that they were in, and not actually this kid's home. She tried to not look overly concerned or bothered, though it was quite difficult. "Do you live here?"

"Sometimes..." the boy said. "It's my hide out. Only me brother knows about it." He patted the blanket next to him for her to sit.

There was no word that could properly describe how relieved she was to hear that. "Oh. That's nice." She awkwardly sat down on the blanket, next to the kid.

James wrapped his arms around his knees. "Do you think t' constable will find out it was us?"

Maybe she should just admit that she was lying. "Nah, I don't think so," she shook her head. "if he does, I'll take the blame."