Adelaide didn't mind when he brushed aside the niceties - she actually preferred it. The more cool and businesslike this stayed the better, in her mind. She hated that she was about to have to face him down with lowered defenses, tell him things that made her seem so foolish and practically absurd in her own mind. Admitting all of her own screwups so point blank as she was about to, to anyone at all, practically made her stomach turn. It was only for Rodeo that this would ever, ever happen, and though the need wasn't life-threatening, she thought she might have a good chance of improving on his happiness. That was good enough for her.
Stone could say he wasn't important enough all he wanted. His position, like she'd already told him, was perfect for this situation. With his friendship with Charlie, he had enough to lose from using Adelaide's words against her that he was likely not to do it. On the other side, Adelaide was convinced it was like Rodeo had said - they were dominos. If one Stone was standing up instead of falling down, she was convinced it would help. That's what she could give Rodeo.
Adelaide shrugged as she passed through the record store's front door before him, the dog close at her heels. When the door was shut behind them Adelaide didn't wait. She turned to face him, stuck both hands in the pockets of her mustard-colored jacket, and began with a frown.
"I've got kind of a lot to say," she said. "So if it's all right with you I'll just... tell it. You'll get where I'm going with it when I get there." She steeled herself for it, he could practically watch her do it. Draw in a breath, let it out, relax shoulders, lower walls, begin.
"When this shit started, I was a bartender in Boston and Cail was an irritating stuffed-shirt who wouldn’t stop trying to get me to go out with him. He grabbed a lot of power for himself, and soon enough they were registering people and nobody really knew what it meant. I had… no one, and no way were they going to make me choose between fending for myself, or being locked away in some safe house just because I’d never been bitten. So I fucking agreed I’d marry Cail, if he’d get me Immune status, let me keep a little bit of freedom. Or so I thought. Like I said, nobody knew anything about what was coming in those days or what any of it actually meant. I took a gamble. Hawkinses are fucking shit at gambling.
I didn’t realize how bad it was until last year. They found out some guy lied, a bunch of guards heard that he was faking immunity, for whatever reason. So they tied him out in the middle of Boston fucking Common, and they made him stand there, just stand there, long enough for him to be bitten a dozen times. Then they sniped off the undead, dragged his mangled ass back to quarantine, and waited for the fever. Three days later he turned, and they chopped his fucking head off and put it on a spike for a fucking example."