"Come here, detective. Don't be afraid."

Julianne looked unearthly as she spoke, with her autumn hair tumbled, her cheeks waxen. They stood so close, motionless, that there was nothing between them but their bated breath and the brume of those words.

Grimes shuddered and clamped his teeth to hide it, his square jaw bulging beneath the rusty stubble. He couldn't speak lest he betray his apprehension. He couldn't divert his gaze.

Perhaps sensing his unease, Julianne lifted one wan hand to caress his face. Disarmed, Grimes broke his stare and looked to her arm. His gaze followed the track of freckles up her arm, splayed erratically like the spent shells from the crime scene where they had first met. As eyes continued upon their path, on to her pallid shoulder, they narrowed, baleful, as a horrid revelation came upon him.

At a breakneck pace, Grimes opened a considerable distance between them as he drew his pistol, heavy and cold like the lump in his throat. He shook all over as he raised it level with his own shoulder, and aimed straight down his arm at hers as it stretched out towards him. The expression on her face was not one of confusion, but of remorse.

"Freckles," Grimes started, and then gulped. "Freckles are only grey when you're dead."