When it comes to Emilie, Rodeo is heavily conflicted. He knows she is still using, and he knows she ain't gettin' it from him anymore. There are times when he's tempted to keep giving her what she needs just so she doesn't have to turn to the cats for it. He didn't like the sound of them opening up a tab for her, and he likes it even less now that he knows what happens when that debt comes due. The cat they captured confirmed that the tab is used to create indentured slaves to the cartel. He hates the thought of them preying on Emilie, hates to imagine the price she might have already paid for the drug she craves from those bad cats. But if he's the one giving her the poison, isn't he the one killing her? Ain't her blood on his hands then? Maybe it's on his hands either way. Maybe it's already too late to undo the damage he's done to her.
But she smiles and reaches for him from the dark, telling him she missed him. He steps down into the shadows, reaching out to take her hand, knotting his fingers into hers. The leather doesn't feel unpleasant against his skin, but he can feel how cold her fingers are even through it. In the dim light from the stars overhead he can see how shadowed and sickly she looks, and it wrings sharply at his already sorry heart. He leans in to kiss her pale cheek, heading down the stairs into the dark with her.
"I missed you too, baby," he says. "Where we headed to? You gonna show me your place, darlin'?"