She slept chained up now, in case she turned in the night. No more curling into the warmth of Maxine's body, her presence grounding her when she woke from a nightmare where she was still working for Van Ark. No more watching how the tension in Maxine's shoulders drained out and the lines on her face smoothed while she was asleep; no more pretending things were not so bad. Some nights, she would wake up with a wrist rubbed raw or an aching shoulder from tossing and turning.
But she would wake up.
Every time she put the chains on, attached the handcuff and made sure she couldn't slip it off, she had to face the possibility that she wouldn't.
Before the outbreak, she hadn't really been a practising Jew: lighting Shabbat candles and going to synagogue for the occasional holiday didn't count. The first time she woke up chained up alone, words she hadn't thought about since school came back to her: Modah ani l'fanecha. I offer thanks to you, ever-living Sovereign, that you have restored my soul to me in mercy. How great is your trust.
No one on Earth trusted her - she didn't trust herself. She had been the one to suggest the chains. And yet every day she woke up. Every day her soul was restored to her, and she was granted another day with Maxine. So after the apocalypse, lying alone, Paula prayed.