Adelaide knows Sarge plenty well enough to know that the gesture flusters him, that he is about as big a fan of new things as she is herself and it's been quite a while since he was used to her - and she was hardly more than a kid then. But she's never been and never will be one to tiptoe around those she considers Her People and so she doesn't look a bit perturbed by his reaction. She'll get him used to her again quick enough.
His grunt and his rough treatment of the eager-looking kid just make her smile, and she gets up onto the bike behind Rodeo. The helmet has always been a necessary evil but she knows full well that her brother won't budge until she's wearing it so she goes ahead and puts it on. There is a long surreal moment like an out of body experience before Adelaide holds on, that kind of moment where everything that has just happened catches up and bowls you over all at once with the suddenness of a freight train. She looks at the back of Rodeo's shoulders, and though there is a bullet-proof vest and a tacky cut of leather obscuring things, it's him. The swagger, that mess of tawny hair, even down to the same cologne. He isn't dead, and he isn't lost, and he isn't locked up.
She puts her arms around his middle, presses her cheek against the back of his shoulder for a second to get steady. "Yeah, I'm ready," she says. She's never cared much about riding on a motorcycle one way or the other. She knows some people find it thrilling, freeing, like flying or something but she can take it or leave it. It's always been more that when she was on the back of a bike it meant that all was right with the world, that she was with her people and where she ought to be. That's the feeling that comes over her while Rodeo starts up the bike, while Sarge kicks his to life alongside them. The rest of the people and bikes around them could be a thousand miles away or turn to dust on the spot and she wouldn't be bothered, and as they rumble their way through the dusty, dried out landscape toward the Dog Park, Adelaide pretends like they don't exist.
There is some trepidation about going to see the place that Rodeo has built up from nothing - she simultaneously feels like she doesn't know what to expect, and like she knows precisely how it will be. Everything she's heard previously tells her that the place, the group, is enormous, and well run, and as tight-knit as any group here in the end of the world could be. She is self-aware enough to realize she may not react especially well to any of it. When the walls rear up on the horizon, her arms tighten a bit in anticipation and she holds her breath as they approach.