[ How mean. He’s still trying to get over all the dog jokes. ]

It would. You'd also get the attention of several other people and the local dogs.

[ Derek gives a short nod as an oddly-timed ‘thanks’ before starting to look through the book. While he is being careful with it, he’s not stopping to glance over every single page either. ]

I doubt that a medical team would care about your reading preferences. If they did, you could pass it off as incredibly detailed fiction. Or hide it back in your bag.

[ Of course he can’t make heads or tails of the entries in German, other languages were never his strong suit, but he does take in the images. He’s still not entirely certain of what he’s trying to find, just hoping that an entry will stand out and he’ll know that it’s something similar. ]

One of these days I’d like an echo that actually names whatever I’m turning into. [ He pauses. ] Unless an ‘alpha’ is a species.