A woman who was cradling her child in her arms walked up to me with a confused state, "Did you say your name was John?" I nodded, "Even if we were to get there, how would we?".

"Yeah!" said a man who was still in his nightwear clinging onto a cricket bat, "It's not exactly safe out there, is it?"

I looked and everyone and they looked at me with desperate plea. I didn't want to take blame if anyone got hurt, but this was the sort of riots where people don't care for other people's lives. You would basically become ants in your own town. I thought long and hard on when and how we should get there. We would have to go before the SWAT team gets past where we were. We would have to leave in pretty much any minute.

"Okay, what's the time?" I asked as I walked back onto the main street.

"Ten to twelve,".

Ten to twelve. The riots have lasted at least three hours and like Lestrade said: they don't look like they're dying down. Hollen street was five minutes up the road; to me it seemed possible.

"Okay, we're going to have to leave now," I said as he tapped Sherlock's shoulder, causing him to focus more with what is happening, "Women and children will walk in the middle; me and Sherlock will walk in the front; the rest walk in the back. Any objections?".

I took that as a no and started to walk outside of the alley and towards the side of the wall. I had one hand scrunched up into a fist while my other hand was placed firmly around the hand grip of my gun. I think Sherlock knows I carry this around with me; at times it has been proven useful. I looked behind me to see Sherlock looking at his surroundings with more caution, but something was different. It's as if he has fear in his eyes; he isn't used to seeing things like this, only what he sees on the television. I, on the other hand, have lived it. Children's eyes were protected in case shattered glass would fly at us, or to shield their eyes away from the horror of violence. The soaring heat from burning buildings grew and grew until I was choking from the smoke and my eyes started to tear up.

"How far left?" asked someone from behind me.

"Any minute now!" I shouted over the chaos.

I tried to focus more on the signs on streets to check we were going in the right direction, but my vision was buzzing. I couldn't see anything, which wasn't really useful. Sherlock tapped my shoulders and pointed towards the next street. I

"There!" he said as he pushed me forward, making me trip over broken glass.

As we sped up our pace, the chaos seemed to become even more dominant. Most of the rioters were male who were either in their teenage years or 20's. They all had their faces covered either with a hooded coat or a baseball cap. Some were laughing and some were shouting abuse to pretty much anything. It was as if the young were using the news report as a chance to cause anarchy. It was like they didn't care about the child killed in the first place. I wondered how their generation got so...messed up. First, the riots in 2011 and now this. To this day they still don't know what caused them riots. I say it was out of boredom and greed. It wasn't about trying to prove a point; it was about trying to be better than the law.

We headed around the corner up towards Hollen Street until we heard a horrific scream that made everyone stop and freeze with aversion. A woman was running towards us with bullet wounds to her legs, causing them to bleed thoroughly. One of the men ran up to her and hooker her arm around his head.

"Who did this to you?" I asked, before I realised what was coming towards us. A group of 10 hooded people a couple of miles away were running towards our group with guns at the ready. We looked in horror as we realised they were running towards us. Where could we go? I didn't know the place as much as Sherlock; I looked to him for help, but he had already found it. The warehouse that Lestrade wanted us to go to; it was sanctuary.

"Everyone inside!" we shouted as we piled into the warehouse ourselves. We pushed people in faster so the group couldn't see where we were hiding. The woman who was badly injured was the last to come in and after that, no one else. Sherlock dragged the handle towards him and closed the door shut. That was when most of the noise from outside was cut off. We stood in the silence of the darkness, waiting to either be caught or rescued; it was neither. We could hear the group join the sounds of the high street; after that the only noise that could be heard was sighs of relief. We were safe. We were in sanctuary. If it were up to me, we could have stayed in there until the riots were over. I mean, these riots can't last forever, could they?