Midnight Train to Paris (A Paris Time Travel Romance)

by Juliette Sobanet

  Breaking into another wild run, I squeeze in between the thick tree trunks, pushing heavy, snow-covered branches out of my way until finally I reach the top of a clearing.

  “Jill, what the—” Samuel starts as he catches up with me. But the spine-chilling view before us swallows up his words.

  Nestled at the bottom of the clearing, in between two steep, tree-covered mountains, is an immense castle adorned with four imposing spiral towers that shoot toward the sky. Their sharp points are shimmering and nearly transparent, like rows of icicles melting in the sun. The castle’s tall stone structure is the exact color of the blanket of sparkling white snow it sits upon, and the only thing separating us from entry is the river of ice that slithers around the perimeter like a snake.

  Samuel’s hand wraps around mine, but neither of us says a word.

  We know what we have to do…but the question is, how in the hell will we pull it off?

  CHAPTER 18

  Samuel and I have silently traced the entire circle of trees that line the clearing, searching for a more inconspicuous—not to mention viable—entrance than the closed drawbridge that looms on the opposite side of the icy moat, blocking access to the front door.

  “All of the windows are too high, and I don’t see any other way in,” I whisper to Samuel. “Do you?”

  He pulls the map back out of his pocket, and after studying it for a few moments, he points at a tiny mark located near the back of the castle. “See this? If you look closely, it looks different than the other X marks. More like a cross.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  Samuel glances back down to the snowy lawn that slopes toward the back side of the castle. He squints, his eyes fixating on something.

  “If this is what I think it is, we might have another way in.”

  Before I have a clue what he’s talking about, Samuel leads me back around the wall of trees, stopping behind one of the thicker pines so that we are completely hidden.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Depending on who is inside that castle…or even who might actually live there, the person behind the abduction may not want the men dragging the girls across the drawbridge and in through the front door. Plus, with a property this huge, that bridge can’t possibly be the only way in. I think the cross on the map may be indicating an underground tunnel entrance that leads to the back side of the castle.”

  I raise a questioning brow at my sexy partner, about to tell him how farfetched his theory sounds, but as I steal another glance at the freaky ice palace hidden in the middle of the Alps in 1937, I realize farfetched doesn’t even begin to cover it. “If there is some secret entrance, how are we going to find out without running right into the clearing? We’ll be spotted immediately.”

  “If I’m right, then there has to be a small part of the hill where the snow has been shoveled aside to reach the entrance. I’ll go search for it, and I want you to stay here with your gun ready.”

  “But, Samuel—”

  His finger on my lips shushes me. “Jill, I know what I’m doing. I’ll be quick. I want you to keep an eye out. And don’t be afraid to use the gun if you need it.”

  “If you find this secret tunnel entrance, what then?”

  “I’ll get the door open first, then I’ll motion for you to come. Do not come a moment sooner, no matter what happens. Do you promise?”

  “Yes, I promise,” I say.

  Samuel lifts a brow at me, the look on his rugged face still strikingly handsome despite the stressful circumstances we are facing.

  “I promise,” I say once more. “What’s the plan if we make it inside?”

  Samuel takes my hands in his, locking his strong gaze on me. “When we make it inside, no lives will be spared if they’re blocking our way to find Rosie and Frances.”

  Just as I am nodding in understanding, Samuel brushes his lips against mine, the warmth of his passionate kiss sending tingles through this freezing, tired body of mine.

  As our lips part, I press my forehead against his. “Thank you for being such a bad-ass partner in crime,” I whisper.

  A sly grin spreads over his full lips, and after one more toe-curling kiss, Samuel takes off past the shield of trees and into the open clearing. Fearless and determined, he runs swiftly and quietly, a moving target willing to sacrifice everything to save these women.

  My heart thumps inside my chest as I reach for my gun and aim it toward the castle. I comb the endless rows of windows that line its white stone walls, before scanning the snow-covered rooftop and the towering spirals, but there isn’t a soul in sight. Samuel is almost to the edge of the river when he crouches down so that he is almost completely out of my line of vision.

  I creep a little closer, stepping onto a leveled tree stump to get a better view of what he’s doing. Not more than a few seconds pass before he stands, takes a quick look around, then motions for me to follow him.

  A paralyzing terror seizes me, but the fear evaporates the minute I remember the brutal man who forced Isla through these same mountains at gunpoint, and the men who did the same to Rosie and Frances.

  They won’t get away with this.

  Seconds later, I’m half-way across the clearing, my legs pumping fiercely toward Samuel.

  Just before I reach him, he turns, aiming his gun toward the castle. An ear-splitting gunshot breaks the pillow of silence that had been comforting me up to this point. Samuel is still standing, defending me as he fires more shots. I don’t break my stride to see who he is shooting at.

  “Behind me!” Samuel shouts just before firing another shot.

  More blasts sound through the mountainside as I slide to my knees and land right next to a metal door that Samuel has wrenched open.

  “Get inside!” he orders.

  The sound of one final gunshot blasts past my ears as I slip into the dark hole and fall several feet below to the cold, wet ground.

  Samuel tumbles in after me, collapsing back against the wall.

  I reach for him through the murky blackness that envelops us, but when my fingertips meet a patch of soaking wet fabric clinging to his skin, I realize why his breathing is so shallow, why his body is slipping to the ground.

  Samuel has been shot.

  “Oh my God, Samuel, they got you,” I whisper as I kneel down in front of him, reaching blindly for his hands.

  “It’s just my side. I’m okay,” he assures me, but by the way he is sucking in air, I can tell he is anything but okay.

  “What can I do?” I ask him, trying to stifle the helplessness that is threatening to take over. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

  “Whoever shot me knows we made it inside,” he says. “We have to move. We don’t have much time.”

  “Samuel, you can’t—”

  “Jill, trust me. I’ve been through worse. This won’t stop me. Just help me up, and we’ll do this. Okay?”

  I remember the thick scars lining Samuel’s back and chest, the tattoos and muscles he has acquired in the years since we broke up. He knows what he can handle. I need to have faith in him too.

  “Okay,” I say. “Just tell me if I’m hurting you.”

  I slide my arm around his waist and help him to his feet. With my other hand, I reach through the icy blackness until my fingers brush against a stone wall. The two of us set off together through the tunnel, keeping silent in case our next attacker is hiding somewhere in this spooky underground maze.

  I can feel Samuel clutching his side, but he keeps my pace without a single complaint. The dimmest of lights off in the distance sheds an eerie glow down this damp, suffocating pathway, and as we tread a bit farther, we reach the bottom of a winding stone staircase. One lone candle flickers at the top, inviting us to its heat, to its light. With each step we take, Samuel’s muscles tense up, and my own chest tightens with fear.

  Although I know we have no other choice but to continue on this crazy path, I can’t help but wonder if we are we walking ourselves right i
nto a trap.

  A tall stone archway looms at the top of the dungeon-like staircase. Before I can get a clear picture of what lies beyond its opening, the candle that lights our way flickers, and a gust of wind steals its flame.

  Oh, shit.

  “Don’t move,” Samuel whispers as he leaves my side, pulling his gun and heading toward the doorway.

  I blink my eyes, trying to readjust to the darkness, when a whisper of a voice passes through my ears.

  “Hurry, Jilly. She’s going to kill me.”

  Chills slither up my arms as I remember hearing these exact words when I was only thirteen years old, on the day I ran home from the school newspaper to save my sister from dying at the hands of our own deranged mother.

  Isla’s message had reached me then, loud and clear, but this time, as I shiver in this dark, freezing staircase in some godforsaken castle buried in the Alps, I know that Isla isn’t talking about our mother.

  A loud clattering noise snaps me back to the present.

  Samuel.

  Yanking my gloves off, I shove them in my coat pocket and reach for my gun. The metal feels shockingly cool against my hands as I inch toward the doorway, being careful to keep my back pressed against the wall. The unmistakable sounds of a struggle on the other side send a shot of adrenaline through my veins.

  Samuel is strong, but he is also wounded. I can’t let him do this alone.

  I aim my gun and round the doorway, but a sudden blast knocks me back against the wall.

  My heart constricts before I can bring myself to open my eyes.

  A hand on my shoulder prompts me to let out the breath I’ve been holding. It’s Samuel, standing before me, gripping a smoking gun in his other hand.

  Two feet away from us, a man lies slumped on the ground, silky red blood pooling out from the hole in his chest.

  “It was either me or him,” Samuel whispers. “Come on, let’s go.”

  But Samuel’s voice is cut off by a wretched shriek that soars through the castle and into the candlelit hallway. I flinch as another shrill scream rattles my ears.

  “What is it, Jill? Did you see something again?” Samuel says.

  “Didn’t you hear that? The screaming?”

  He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t hear anything.”

  I take a deep breath, hoping I’m not losing my mind.

  “Just because I didn’t hear it doesn’t mean it wasn’t real, though,” Samuel says. “Everything you’ve seen so far has led us to the right place. Where did it come from?”

  But again, I barely hear Samuel’s voice because another panicked cry rings through the castle—this one from a voice I recognize.

  Isla.

  “Follow me,” I tell Samuel as I take off down the dim hallway, chasing the sound of my sister’s cries, which grow louder and more desperate with each passing second.

  A few moments later, we emerge into a large salon. Pale blue candles line the perimeter of the room, their flames casting eerie shadows on the periwinkle walls while wax drips onto the slippery, white marble floor. Shimmering white drapes billow as gusts of bitter winter air blast in through the open windows.

  The wind picks up, relinquishing all of the flames in one unforgiving gust. I grip Samuel’s arm as another distressed cry travels through the newly darkened space.

  “I heard that one,” Samuel whispers. “It’s Rosie. Come on.” He takes my hand and leads me through the icy salon and down another winding maze of candlelit hallways.

  I try to focus on the path ahead, on keeping pace with Samuel, on making it to Rosie and Frances before another life is lost, but intense, terrorizing visions seize me with each step.

  I see the gun pointed at my sister’s unborn child as her nameless captor forces her along this same path. I see her blood splashing across the smooth marble floor as the man smacks her across the face when she refuses to stop screaming.

  And I hear her voice.

  Isla is calling for me. She is howling my name.

  “Jill, come on!” It’s Samuel, calling me back to the present—or the past—or wherever the hell we are. “We’re close,” he whispers. “Stay with me, Jill. Please, stay with me.”

  I focus on Samuel’s strong stance, on the way he is charging ahead despite the wound in his side that is leaking blood through his shirt, threatening to drain all his strength.

  “We are close,” I say, trying to blink away the raging flashes that plague my vision.

  I have never felt Isla’s presence, her fear, her terror, more than I do in this moment.

  At the sound of footsteps thumping down the hallway behind us, Samuel grabs my hand and breaks into a run. More screams and cries blast through my ears, and as we round another corner, I realize I don’t know anymore whether those panicked voices belong to Rosie, Frances, Isla, or even to myself. It’s as if I’m straddling a tightrope between the past and the future, and at any given moment, I could plummet to either side.

  Tall white candles flicker alongside us, lighting our way through these icy, stone-arched hallways as the pounding footsteps grow louder.

  “See that door up ahead to the left?” Samuel says. “Go hide in there, and have your gun ready.”

  “But what are you—”

  “I’ll handle it, Jill. Go.”

  In an instant, Samuel’s strong hand slips from mine. Without turning back, I sprint toward the tall white door down the corridor. Just as I push through and close the door behind me, the booming sounds of bodies slamming against walls out in the hall and fists breaking skin make me flinch.

  But when I open my eyes, the scene before me steals my breath.

  Three snow-white cribs circle the shadowy room, and dozens of baby mobiles dangle from the ceiling, swirling violently with each gust that blows in through the open windows. Creepy, off-pitch melodies swim through my ears as I run toward the center of the room, to the young woman with the sweet face and the dark brown curls who is beaten, bloody, and tied to a chair.

  “Rosie,” I whisper, kneeling down before her and tugging frantically at the ropes that bind her limp body. “Rosie, it’s me, Jillian. Wake up, Rosie. Wake up!”

  “So, Jillian is your name.” A bone-chilling female voice calls out to me in French.

  I flip around, my gaze landing on a woman dressed in a long, billowing black dress, her matching stone eyes and jet black hair immediately making me recognize her as the original matriarch of the powerful Morel family—Agnès Morel. Wife of Henri, mother of Alexandre. The woman who would’ve been Rosie’s mother-in-law, had Rosie stayed true to Alexandre.

  “So you are the third, mysterious woman we plucked from the Orient Express,” she says in French as she taps a shiny silver blade against her palm, the blood that covers the tip of the knife smearing all over her pale skin. “We’re so glad you could finally join us. Aren’t we, Rosie?”

  CHAPTER 19

  Agnès Morel paces toward me, turning the jagged blade over in her bony hands. Her wicked gaze is void of any kindness, love, or hope she may have once possessed. Instead, all I see in those endless black holes are rage, jealousy, and pure, unadulterated evil.

  She doesn’t shiver or show even a hint of discomfort as a glacial blast of air swoops through the room, swishing the hem of her long black dress around her ankles and twirling the baby mobiles above her head in ferocious circles.

  Their wretched song makes me nauseous.

  The fact that I’ve already witnessed this same brand of crazy in my own sick, imprisoned mother should give me an advantage over the knife-wielding woman before me. But in my experience, women who are this far gone are not capable of feeling any true, virtuous emotions, leaving no point in trying to reason with them.

  Still, I have to try.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask her as I crane my neck toward the door, wondering what has happened to Samuel. “What has Rosie ever done to you to deserve this?”

  A loud, deranged cackle breaks through the incessant melodies t
hat twist and stab like daggers through my eardrums. I turn back to Agnès, wondering why it sounds as if her voice has suddenly changed. But in a flash, her face morphs from the creepy 1930s woman with black hair and haunting eyes to that of a different Morel woman—one with chin-length, dyed-blond hair, a pearl necklace, and angry, flaring nostrils.

  Hélène Morel?

  Hélène’s sparkly diamond bracelet dangles loosely on her wrist as she taps the dull side of a clean knife against her palm. She glares past me as if I’m not even here, her vengeful gaze settling on the girl behind me tied to the chair.

  But when I turn to find Rosie, I realize exactly what is going on.

  It isn’t Rosie tied to the chair anymore—it’s Isla.

  I am having another vision of the future, and in 2012, in this same haunting ice castle, it is Hélène Morel who is holding my sister hostage.

  Just as I lunge toward my sister, the image flashes once more.

  Agnès is now towering over me, her pointy black heel pinning me to the ground as she grips my gun in one hand and her bloody knife in the other.

  Shit.

  “For as brave as you seemed storming in here to save the day, you’re certainly not very quick on your feet,” Agnès says to me as she removes her foot from my chest and paces toward one of the cribs. “You know, Jillian, it’s not only Rosie who has wronged me and my family name.” Without looking down, she points the dagger toward her feet.

  Following her gesture, I have to stifle a scream as I discover a mess of blond hair, stained brown with blood, sprawled on the white marble floor. The victim’s face is turned away from me, and the rest of her body is hidden by one of the large cribs, but I recognize her nonetheless.

  It’s Frances Chapman.

  Just like Emma Brooks and Francesca Rossi in the future version of this monstrous crime, Frances has been slayed.

  Which means that in this impossible convergence of the past and the future, only Rosie and Isla are left.

  And with no sign of Samuel, it is up to me to save them both. Just as I was told I would have to do.