Story code: ST-000428
Part 3: The Bounty
My mouth tasted like old pennies, a metallic tang that signaled the very early stages of my blood turning toxic. The heavy, suffocating ache of insulin deprivation was already settling into the back of my throat, making me desperately thirsty. I sat in my baking car, staring at the glowing yellow ‘Delivery Stopped’ warning on my pump, and then at the DocuSign link on my phone.
*Type your deadname. Commit yourself to the compound.*
My thumb hovered over the digital signature line. I was minutes away from surrendering, from letting them drag me back into the windowless counseling rooms I still had nightmares about. But a bitter, burning knot of defiance in my chest refused to let me press the screen. I needed to see it. If this was a legal judgment, there had to be a public record.
I closed the email app and opened my mobile browser, my hands trembling as I searched for the Oakhaven County Clerk of Courts. The county’s website was an outdated, clunky mess, but I found the public records portal. I typed my deadname into the civil docket search.
The result popped up instantly: *Ascension Collections LLC v. [Deadname]*. Default judgment granted thirty days ago for breach of contract.
I stared at the plaintiff’s name. A legitimate collection agency wouldn’t just pop up out of nowhere to enforce a religious tithing contract from a fringe church. I tapped the hyperlink for ‘Ascension Collections LLC’ to see their other filings.
The screen refreshed, populating a list that made my blood run cold. There were fourteen active lawsuits. I recognized the defendants’ names immediately. Sarah. Marcus. Chloe. They were all kids who had fled the congregation over the last few years, kids who had come out, kids who had escaped. Diane Abernathy wasn’t just coming after me; she was systematically hunting down every queer kid who had ever signed a tithing pledge at youth group.
I clicked on the corporate registration details attached to the newest filing. Diane Abernathy was listed as the sole registered agent and executive director.
On a hunch, driven by the sheer frantic energy of a cornered animal, I cleared the search bar. I typed *Diane Abernathy* into the defendant field. I expected to find nothing. Instead, the portal loaded half a dozen massive, terrifying civil judgments.
*Oakhaven Oncology Associates v. Abernathy.*
*Midwest Cardiology Group v. Abernathy.*
*Oakhaven Regional Medical Center v. Abernathy.*
I scrolled through the amounts. Forty thousand dollars. Eighty-five thousand. Over two hundred thousand dollars in crushing medical debt, all filed within the last two years. I remembered the prayer requests from my last few months at the church-Diane’s husband, Gary, had been diagnosed with aggressive heart failure and colon cancer. They hadn’t believed in health insurance, calling it a lack of faith in God’s protection.
But the final entry on the docket was the one that made my breath catch in my painfully dry throat.
Filed exactly fourteen days ago: *Notice of Automatic Stay – Federal Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.*
My brain frantically connected the dots. Chapter 13 wasn’t a liquidation; it was a reorganization. It required the debtor to submit a strict, court-ordered payment plan to a federal trustee. If they missed a single monthly payment, the bankruptcy failed, and the creditors could seize their home, their cars, everything.
Ascension Collections wasn’t some holy crusade. It was a business. The Ascension Restorative Retreat Center charged private donors and desperate parents ten thousand dollars a month to “cure” troubled youth. Diane wasn’t just a devout believer trying to save my soul. She was the intake coordinator. She had a quota.
She was coercing vulnerable queer kids into a highly profitable conversion therapy camp, using the leverage of frozen bank accounts, so she could collect the recruiter bounties to pay her federal bankruptcy trustee.
I didn’t sign the DocuSign. I clicked the phone number at the bottom of the email and dialed.
Diane answered on the first ring. “I see you’ve opened the covenant, sweetheart,” she said, her voice dripping with that same artificial, maternal sweetness. “The Lord is rejoicing. Just type your name, and I will release the funds for your medicine right now.”
“Case number 22-CV-4091,” I rasped, my voice dry but steady.
She paused. “Excuse me?”
“Oakhaven Oncology versus Diane Abernathy,” I read aloud from the screen. “Judgment for eighty-five thousand dollars. And let’s not forget the big one, federal bankruptcy filing, Chapter 13, two weeks ago. You need cash to make your trustee payments, don’t you, Diane?”
The saccharine warmth in her voice vanished instantly. The line was dead quiet, save for the faint hum of static.
“You aren’t a servant of God,” I said, leaning my head back against the scorching headrest of my car. “You’re a bounty hunter. The church pays you a commission for every stray flock member you drag into the retreat center, don’t they? You’re freezing our bank accounts, stealing our mutual aid money, and starving us out so you can hit your quota.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she hissed, the holy facade finally cracking into sharp, panicked anger. “My family has been tested by the Lord. Gary’s treatments-the Lord expects us to be resourceful in our trials. You owe that money to the church!”
“You are selling queer kids to a conversion camp to pay your husband’s medical bills,” I shot back, the adrenaline cutting through my brain fog. “I am sitting in a parking lot, dying of a preventable disease, because you stole my life support to save yourself from bankruptcy.”
“It is a legally binding contract!” she shouted, her voice shrill, desperate. “You signed it! You owe us!”
“I owe you nothing,” I whispered.
I waited for her to quote scripture. I waited for her to threaten me with hellfire or damnation. But she had nothing left. Stripped of the religious armor, she was just a desperate, drowning woman who had been caught drowning someone else to stay afloat. For the first time in five years, Diane Abernathy had absolutely nothing to say, leaving only a heavy, suffocating silence hanging between us.