There's something about this girl that just ensnares him, makes him pay attention. Maybe he reckons that she's as broken as he feels sometimes. What wicked scars being forsaken can leave on the tender-hearted. When he was small his sister was all he had to hold on to, and without her he is only rage and anguish. What Emilie is going through right now, Rodeo knows it well. It's that same self-destructive misery that drove him to such extreme and wanton violence when he was locked in Huntsville and Adelaide cut herself off from him. So when she dumps the bag into his lap, Rodeo looks down at it and he knows without a doubt that three quarters of the shit he'd given her went straight into her arm. He closes his hand around the bag and then turns his eyes back on her.
"Emilie," he says, because he wants her to listen. Rodeo will only use a person's name when he damn well means it. "I need you to hear me right now, alright? You gotta stop this shit. I saw that interview, darlin'. I know what you're feelin'. My mama was a drunk and my daddy was a rounder. She'd tell me I was the worst thing ever happened to her and he'd just knock me out. But I have a baby sister and she's my everything. My universe." He echoes Emilie's own words, and he means them with his whole soul. "I made some real bad mistakes. I shot two men and they locked me up in prison. Just waitin' to die and my baby sister walked away from me. She had to. She couldn't live her life waitin' to die too. I thought I lost her forever, and I lost my soul. I got so black and cold inside. Geeks came and I got outta my cage, but I was already full dark. I came to this city and I wanted to watch it die, 'cause killin's the only thing makes me feel alive sometimes. I got such rage. Feels so good to push a knife into somebody's skull when your heart's a hole you're tryin' so desperate hard not to fall into. But I found my sister again, and I ain't ever lettin' her go. I'll do anything it takes to keep her by my side. Your brother's out there waitin' to love you, how could you want anything else? Now we're done with this shit, you understand me? I ain't givin' you any more. I ain't givin' nobody any more. I'm done poisoning this city. I ain't gonna be the reason you die, Emilie."