FATE

75. A Haunted House

BROOKE

I pause at the door to take a deep breath. Then spread my lips into a grin as wide as I can muster. I raise one hand and knock on the door, waiting for Loki to open up.

He does about two seconds later and surprise is evident in his eyes.

"Brooke?"

"Hey", I sing with the plastered grin on my face.

He's dressed in a long white sleeved shirt and black sweatpants. He leans on the doorframe, his eyes scanning my appearance. I hope he can't see that anything is wrong. I put a lot of work into not looking like I was really tired of my life lately.

"What are you doing here?", his eyes meet mine again as my grin turns into a small smile.

"Andrew and Elena will be here in less than an hour", I say before pushing my hand into the pocket on the side of my jacket, "and I wanted to return the iPod"

I hand it over to him but he doesn't collect it.

"Why?", he sounds like he's offended.

"Oh, I'm going back to Boston in two days. I came to say goodbye", I explain, "and I called Andrew to tell him but he said he wanted to see me too so- ", I glance ahead of him into the house, "-you're not busy, are you?"

He shakes his head and moves out of the way for me to enter, "come in"

As I walked past him, I catch a whiff of his scent.

The house is the designed the same way mine is- with the living room on the right and the kitchen on the left. The stairs leading upstairs is ahead of me. Behind me, I hear Loki shut the door and I glance around. It looks the same but it's not decorated the same.

Next to the front door is a small stool with a white statue of a man with curly hair standing on it. he looks like he's frowning, I'm not sure.

"Who's that?", I ask.

Loki glances at the sculpture, "Beethoven"

"The classical composer?", I ask and he nods, "that's what he looked like?"

"Yup", he answers as he pushes his hand into his pockets, "hungry?"

"No, thank you", I say. I haven't eaten an actual meal in a while. I don't have an appetite.

He walks past me, "in that case, come on", he says.

Where is he going to? I try to think about what's down the hall past the stairs in my house. It's a room where my mom keeps old things she's not using in the house- like a store. It's usually locked. Loki turns and walks in. I follow after him.

"You said we have an hour at most?", he asks as I walk in.

This is definitely not a store.

The walls of the room are covered in white wallpaper and different instruments lay in different parts of the room. On one side, a grand piano stand, on the wall, guitars of different sizes hang. On the other side of the room, there's a tall harp and next to it, there are violins set next to stands on which sheet music are displayed. There's a saxophone lying in an open case, a complete set of drums and even a triangle.

Loki sits on a small cushioned bench in front of the piano and watches as I walk into the room, my gaze flickering through everything in it.

"Woah", I manage to say, "you weren't lying when you said your parents were music enthusiasts"

He chuckles, "no, I wasn't"

I tap my finger on one of the drums lightly, "do you know how to play this?"