Oh, goodie, because the state of the kid was absolutely the forefront priority in her mind, she's so relieved now.

"So my gun can probably cut through this thing but if we're underground when I do it, we're going to be shit out of luck."

"I, I, what, but, we were just. Can worms assassinate people???? Why didn't it just eat them!!"

"It probably just did. They were in the ground. It was in the ground."

"No but I mean, why would it, but if it did then it left them there, I'm. What???"

"...I'd be surprised if the worm had, uh," he spares the kid a glance and rather than saying "killed the parents" he says "done it. It seemed pretty surgical and this, uh... is a very big worm."

The kid gets it anyway and looks away, balling their hands into little fists.

"Ahuh. Unless worms can carry a knife and fit into a diner at the same time I'm not seeing how one would be responsible." She then points at the kid. "Kid did it."

Okay, so, yes the evidence does point in that direction now that she's thinking about it, but, "You can't just say that!!! They were probably his parents!!"

"Why, because he's small and vulnerable looking? That's how they get you. Kids can be cruel. And they're very easily molded to do whatever the hell someone wants. So."

...the kid throws Morgan the most hurt, upset look in the history of mankind. "I, I didn't!" Those being the first words they've said so far. "I, I, I—" And their eyes fill up with tears.

Zash shoots Morgan a pretty dirty look before looking at the kid again.

(Not that he hadn't thought of that, but... he thinks he'd have been able to tell, in the kid's mind. And while the kid is on the more opaque end of minds the emotions he can pick up are all very genuine.)

"Ignore her, she's just in a bad mood, I know you didn't do it."

The kid wipes their eyes angrily, shaking their head, then cries, "I didn't!"

And then they take off.

Oh goddamnit.

"Oh nooooo, the probable murderer is running away, deeper into the belly of the worm, my heart, it breaks."

"And if he's innocent you just consigned a child to be digested by a, a, how fucking big even is this thing, I didn't know worms could get this big."

"Well if he's innocent then clearly he was not long for this world, 'cause he just ran away from the only person who can maybe cut a way out of this thing, so. I think death by worm might be a kindness."

"HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK."

He squints at Morgan for a second.

Something here isn't adding up.

And her mind is also on the more opaque end so he can't pick up very much from her. She does seem to believe what she's saying, and also... he thinks she... has some other reason to believe it? Than just logic. Which is less the psychic stuff and more inference and gut feeling, he'd need to be closer to her and maybe touching her skin to get more than that. Still, he'll need to chase that note of confusion down.

After, that is, he chases the kid down, because the down side if Morgan is wrong is still an innocent kid being eaten by a worm bigger than anything Zash has seen in his hundred and fifty years of life. Off he goes.

"I really feel like we should be focusing on the actual problem here, which is being stuck in a fuckoff huge worm!!!" she calls after him.

"Sure, until you went and added another one to it! Even removing the possibility of innocence, which I am not, we can't just -- there are any number of reasons someone could kill, that doesn't mean they deserve to die in here."

And then yeah she'll go running off after Zash, because Zash is clearly the person to be sticking with in here.

"We are in here too! How about we worry about us instead of -- fucking damn it fine I'm coming but this is stupid!"

Zash is superhumanly strong and agile; the kid is small. In a space made of fleshy hills and unstable footing, the kid mostly wins. At least in the short run—Zash could probably have caught up to the kid if he knew exactly where the kid had gone and kept running, but after running a little bit he reaches a bifurcation.

"What kind of nightmare of biological construction has a bifurcation in a creature's guts," he growls in frustration.

"Hell if I know, man," grumbles Morgan, arriving shortly after. "You want someone who can explain worm biology to you then I am not the person to..."

"... Wheeeeeere is our nerd. We are down a nerd."

He swirls around fast enough it's almost like he instantaneously inverted mid-air. "—Yvette? Yvette!"

Ooookay time to backtrack a little bit he did not run far enough ahead that he could possibly have lost her.