"I definitely needed help with that one."

"Well, the venomous part could be tricky, I suppose," Emma says thoughtfully. "Your school library will have a surprisingly good selection of relevant books, though, if I'm remembering correctly."

"We're working through the ones that are at least arguably in English as fast as we can."

"We?" Emma asks, surprised. She thought she knew all the Watchers, at least roughly at the name-and-location level; one of the reasons she took this job was that there wasn't anyone here.

"My sister's helping. Dad doesn't know any more than he wants to. I repeat, do not send demonic hordes to my house."

"Well, I can probably help with some of the non-English ones," she confesses. "And as I haven't the foggiest notion where I would come by a horde of demons to send you, it seems safe enough to promise I won't."

"It's not that I particularly suspect you of wanting to send demons after me or having a bunch of them in your back pocket, it's just I usually don't go shouting from rooftops that there might be reason for this to cross anyone's mind in the first place."

Emma snorts. "You might want to consider acting a little more pathetic in the emergency room, then," she suggests. "Seventeen year olds are not usually quite so cavalier about this many claw marks."

"I decided 'it's not as bad as it looks' was just barely less flimsy than 'oh, the pain, the pain, but let me go tomorrow at the latest pretty please'."

Emma laughs. "We wouldn't keep you overnight for this kind of thing necessarily, you'd just get stronger drugs. And, if you hadn't gotten me, you'd probably have been stuck with that rabies shot."

"What, do some non-mammals carry rabies? I was going to go with 'somebody's escaped pet alligator' if pressed on the point."

"You know, we haven't been here long, and yet somehow it does not surprise me that 'escaped pet alligator' is a reasonable explanation here?"

"It's a better excuse than 'barbecue fork'."

"Really, almost anything is a better excuse than 'barbecue fork'."

"Yes. Am I keeping you from more medically urgent situations and/or clocking out? I don't know how much time you have for small talk blocked into your day and you did sound like you wanted to go home."

"Clocking out. Nothing else urgent's come up, thankfully." She starts to pack up her things. "Good night, Isabella. Stay safe."

"Bella, please. And I'll do what I can. Can I get you to sign a note saying I did not sneak out, I am released good and proper?"

"Of course, did you need a copy...?" If her father's that suspicious, he could just call and check, Bella's a minor still, but he seemed reasonably trusting. At least in the minute or so Emma encountered him.

"If it's not too much trouble. He'll probably believe me, but I'd rather accumulate credit than spend it, considering."

"He probably wouldn't if he hadn't - seen things." She shrugs. "But yeah. I'm lucky." She puts the paperwork in her bag, along with Emma's phone number.

"Good night, Bella," Emma says with a smile.