Adelaide Hawkins is very good at staying still. She's also normally very good at waiting, but this day, this plan, have put that thoroughly to the test.
Every last thing that is important to her hinges on this plan. There are no two people more pivotal to her happiness than Rodeo and Sarge, no two fates more tied to her own. That's always been the case, always will be. But now their fates are in her hands. The plan she helped build is the one that will either free them or doom them, and she's holding on tight to keep an even keel in the face of that fact.
She would far rather be part of the team that is set to pick the escapees up, to see them sooner rather than later, but it isn't as simple as that and so she is here, crouched on a rooftop, a rifle in hand.
Adelaide doesn't have any delusions that the Hellhound officers will come out of this reformed and stay out of trouble hereafter. That just isn't them. They will be out in this city again, face to face with enemies again, and some of them will come from right here, today. Freed by the explosion they will set. It has weighed on her, the fact that she couldn't come up with some way to free her people without blowing a hole in this prison, and so this is how she will make amends for that - shooting down as many enemies as she finds it possible to shoot. That is how she'll sleep at night.
Ruth isn't someone that Adelaide knows well, but she already appreciates the other woman's calm. Competence is something that Adelaide values highly in other people, and it radiates from Ruth while they wait. She uses it like an anchor, and by the time that truck rolls in she is able to take her place, still as stone.
They have a perfect view as the DoR agent - whatever unfortunate soul was the one picked up by Roman and Derek - passes through the security checkpoint without trouble, and the truck moves into the loading dock in the back of the former hotel. And now they wait, wait for Roman and Derek to do their thing inside, for the blast to be set, for the patches to get clear and set it off.
The waiting feels like forever, so much so that Adelaide is counting her own breaths by the time the explosion shatters through the quiet of the early afternoon. The building they are perched upon shudders, and a gaggle of walkers a street over turns toward the noise, hangs paused for half a moment, before detouring back toward the prison with a collective groan.
They wait, one beat, two, rifles raised and ready.
And then the prison walls start to bleed out humans, prisoners in orange scrambling over fresh rubble, taking the chance and seizing the opportunity of escape. Adelaide can only hope that Demi got herself free, that she got to the boys in time. That everyone was together. That the distraction is enough to clear the way for them moving through La Quinta. That Roman and Derek got clear.
She draws in a long slow breath and lets go of every single one of those thoughts, sets her sights on an escapee with a Los Nahuales tattoo visible on his neck, and shoots. The first guards come running, guns drawn, but there are far more prisoners than guards and they can only do so much. Adelaide takes aim once more.