While Mariana and Micah slept soundly in their hotel room, the transparent curtains whistled and blew briskly in the wind that came through. The tree branches caressed the window, like a ghostly touch as the moonlight seeped in, just like the cloaked person that crept in.

The night remained peaceful and undisturbed, until this figure that was concealed within the shadows and tiptoed over to the beds. Their mysterious face was concealed by the cover of the darkness.

They stood over the bed, their glaring eyes stared down like a menacing monster. Their scrawny hands grabbed Elisa first and silenced her muffled cry with chloroform, and rammed her into a bag like he was a useless teddy bear.

They were about to snatch Axel when a cold breeze entered in and blew over Mariana's body, making her quiver at the increased coldness. She turned in her sleep, alarming the figure, and they tried making their way back to the window. But ended up tripping on toys that laid on the floor. Their face landed with a thump, which made Mariana's eyes tingle open.

They stared down at the blurry floor as the figure slowly tried to make their way to the window by crawling.

"Help..." Elisa muffled out but the figure pelted her to shut up. They stopped merely at the window and kept thumping their fist to get them to be quiet, but Elisa kept crying out help with tears and drops of blood streaming down which fully arose Mariana.

She sat up and her voice blew up  at the sight. "What are you doing with my baby!"

The figure then froze and quickly made their escape by jumping out the window. Mariana leapt out of bed and without thinking, she dashed out the window and looked down to where the figure landed on the ground and started to run off.

Mariana climbed down the balconies and hung on to the edge. Since there was a reasonable distance between each floor, she was able to go down and landed on the ground into the cushion of bushes. She didn't give herself time to regain her breath before she dashed off where she last saw them go.

She ran through the moon-lit path. The trees stared down at her with their skeletal arms, and the eye of the moon observed what was happening like a silent spectator. Mariana had the tail of the person in her sight and bolted down to get her baby back.

She strained her muscles and panted out as she was quickly loosing steam, but she was just a few seconds from catching the person, so she forced her legs to carry on running, as she screamed frantically after them.

But once she reached the parking lot, there was no one in sight around the lone cars.

She coughed and steadied herself on her knees. Her chest ached and it felt like her lungs were going to come out.

"Where —are— you—" she continued coughing as she called out into the empty darkness. "Where's—my—baby—?" She cried out until her throat was sore, and the tears begin to come.

"Give me back my baby!" She screamed and stumbled along, not giving up completely yet. Her tongue lolled out like an exhausted puppy and her legs shook with each step she took. Her head was whirling as she called out into the night, hoping to find at least something.

But nothing, she saw nothing within the narrow cracks between the cars. With her head rapidly darting in all directions, it felt like she had lost the trail of the time.

Her breaths were sharp in her chest. Her head felt light and dizzy as a feather, like if she was close to fainting,

But she wasn't going to give up so soon, and panted while doing one last search. She investigated every last corner, under the cars, and behind the trees, but it seemed like the person just vanished into thin air.

"No..." The words came out like a murmur of horror. It was like the world had stopped turning around her. With realization dawning that someone just kidnapped her baby which means she failed at the one thing she promised to her kids when they were born. That she would never let them experience what she had to go through.

When she got handed her baby wrapped in her arms, her tears of pain slowly dissolved into tears of joy when the cry of life erupted like a volcano from her baby's lungs.

"Oh my sweet baby, my precious, you're finally here," Mariana murmured and supported her against her chest, while her head thumped into the pillow. "I'm so exhausted..." she sighed and let out a little chuckle before turning to look at Micah.

"You did so amazing my Mariana," Micah said and got up to kiss her forehead. "I love you so much mi amor for being so strong in bringing out daughter into the world." He clasped her hand and caressed it tenderly while kissing it.

"Thanks." She smiled weakly and looked once more at her baby who tried sucking on her thumb with her big eyes staring at the wall. She blew bubbles from her bright, pink lips, and Mariana had never felt so in love. Cradling this dear, fragile baby in her arms made her want to protect it with her life.

Mariana bent down and placed an affectionate kiss on top of her slimy head. "I love you so much my baby. I love you so much already, and I promise to protect you, so you will never have to go through the same things I did."

"No!" She screeched and dropped to her knees. She started hyperventilating and flung her arms out while wailing out loud. She refused to believe it even though it was so. She desperately wished for this to be a dream and for her to wake up, but she was already awake.

And it wasn't a dream.

She gathered herself and raced back to the hotel before it was too late. "Micah, someone took Elisa!" She started shaking him.

He immediately woke up and the groaned as his body was still in sleep mode. "What?"

"Someone took Elisa!" She burst into tears and pointed to the bed where Axel still slept. He sat up and then went over while rubbing his eyes. His eyes scanned the whole thing and then they grew wide.

"Oh my gosh..." he was speechless to find Elisa missing as Mariana came up behind.

"I saw someone have her in her hand, and they jumped out of the window," Mariana explained while her words were shaking to come out. "I went after them, but they managed to outrun me." Her voice crackled, and she hid her face away, for she felt ashamed at failing to get her back.

"How about we go have another search? The person can't have gone that far?" He suggested and then got close to Mariana. He wiped away her tears and then held her hands. "Don't worry my flower. We will get our daughter back."

"I hope so." She sobbed into his embrace with a broken heart, and then pulled away while clinging to his hands.

Micah carried Axel, and they woke up everyone else to go look outside. They all brought flashlights and carried their sleeping children in their arms. They alerted the hotel staff who called the police. While waiting for them to arrive, they went down the path Mariana previously ran and began Elisa's name, but no answer came back.

"Where's my bambina?" Mariana wept as she got restless. They were just wandering through the night, and her sweat ran down her face, like a race to make her more agitated. She held onto Micah's hand and was quickly caressing it to soothe herself.

Her teeth chopped away at her nails as her flashlight was her eye in the darkness. Occasionally, she checked to see if Axel was still with Micah and to her relief, he was. After all, loosing two kids in one night would be too much.

"Little Elisa, are you here?" Leilani said as she checked under a bush.

"Where are you Elisa?" Mona asked as she looked around some cars.

Mariana bit her nails even more as she was shaking like a scared pigeon. It had been too long for her that they've been searching for what seemed like hours. Her legs started to give way, but she leaned onto Micah and kept looking until the police arrived.

****

The next morning, Mariana was seated at the edge of the pool. Her eyes were large and frozen as they stared dead on at the waters. Her muscles ache because she didn't get an ounce of sleep as she didn't want to until she had her baby in her arms.

They had been searching all night and still no success. She was also exhausted from answering all the police's questions and giving them everything they could in hopes of finding Elisa.

Micah came back with a cup of hot chocolate. He took a seat next to her and handed it over. She took it gracefully, and he pulled her into an embrace.

"We will find her, Mariana, don't worry," he reassured her with a warm hug. But found it difficult since he was feeling anxious about the whole thing himself.

"I just feel like if I ran fast enough, I could've caught her." She sighed.

"It's not your fault Mari. You did the best you can and now we have the rest of our friends to help us."

"Yeah, your right." She huffed out another deep sigh as if there was a heavy weight sitting inside her chest. "I just wish I had done more, though."

Even though the day was radiant and cheery, she felt the exact opposite, like the sky was full of gray clouds and it was about to rain.

Her eyes were focused on Axel who played with Mateo, Raidan, and Rina in the pool, singing 'ring around the rosie' with Mona. She tried to smile, but the little drizzle of tears that came stopped that.

Leilani then came over with a plate of pancakes and sausages. She picked one up with a fork and handed it to her.

"You want this?" She said. "Since you haven't had breakfast. I thought you must be hungry."

"It's okay." Mariana gently pushed it away. "Thanks, but I'm not hungry."

"Alright, maybe later." Leilani nodded in understanding and ate it herself.

"I just feel like, what if we never find her..." Mariana sobbed even harder. Her hair drooped like they were drenched with her tears, and she couldn't bear to look at the other kids.

"Don't worry, you will find your little chérie soon." Leilani nudged her as a source of encouragement.

"Yeah we will find her and bring our princess safely back home," Micah said and enveloped her palm within his. He tried to keep her positive, but his leg started shaking as he couldn't help but worry who had taken her.

Soon, a police officer approached them, and they braced themselves for what he had to say. Mariana couldn't be bothered to look up because she didn't know what she was expecting. Whether they were going to get bombarded with questions again or if it was good news.

She didn't mind answering them if they brought her one step closer to finding their little girl, but it made her more upset because it meant she was really gone.

"Morning Officer, did you manage to find anything last night?" Micah asked.

Mariana squeezed his hand tightly and leaned forwards to listen more carefully. It was then she realized she could hear her own heartbeat booming inside her ears, and how nervous she was to hear whatever he had to say.

"So last night, we managed to find to uncover tracks leading up to one of the other hotels. We followed them and today, we are going to ask the hotel staff about anyone that left the hotel last night."

"Really?" Mariana's pupils lit up as the sun twinkled in her eyes. "Thank you so much!" she quickly dried any tears away with her sleeve as she couldn't believe the news. It felt like a enormous weight of anxiety had been lifted off her shoulders, and she could finally breathe.

"Thanks for all your help Officer." Micah shook his hand and then Mariana eagerly jumped up.

"Come on Leilani! Let's go get Elisa back!" Mariana exclaimed. She was now full in spirits as they now now have a lead.

"Alright." Leilani smiled and then grabbed her bag. Meanwhile, Mariana was about to get Axel but couldn't see him anywhere.

"Where's Axel?" She screeched and clawed at her cheeks. There were other children in the waters except their group with Mona.

"Leilani turned around and her face turned into a questionable look as their kids weren't there. "Where are they?"

"I don't know!" Mariana shouted and went into the waters. She frantically started searching like they drowned.

Suddenly, Mateo came running back excitedly with ice cream. Leilani caught sight of him and suddenly grabbed him once he was close enough.

"Where have you been? Why did you go running off without telling me?" she shouted at him.

"I'm sorry Mommy. I just wanted ice cream with Auntie Mona and the others," Mateo explained and tried pulling away with tears in his eyes.

"Where is she?"

"Um... near the parking lot." Mateo stumbled around and pointed in the direction he came from.

"Let's go then," Mariana muttered in annoyance.

They all walked towards the entrance of the resort. Mariana and Micah sped-walked as they didn't want to waste any time having Axel back.

"Why did you come back on your own? What if something had happened to you?" Leilani demanded.

"Um... the line was long, so Auntie Mona said to go back so I wouldn't have stand for so long." Mateo squirmed uncomfortably.

"She can't just do that!" Leilani ended up shouting again, which made Mateo start crying as he licked his ice cream.

They got to the parking lot and found the ice cream truck. When Mariana saw it, she gasped out of panic and dread, covering her mouth.

Because Mona was nowhere to be found.

A/N: Hey I hope you enjoyed the chapter! The way Mariana doesn't think and just climbs down the balcony will always crack me up hahah but I honestly felt so bad writing this cuz Mariana was so happy in the last chap :')