Jason Pine thought leaving his family's West Texas cotton farm for the dense forests of Nacogdoches was a fresh start. But "Move-In Day" at Stephen F. Austin University takes a macabre turn when a faculty member is found murdered in the heart of campus, leaving behind a cryptic note scrawled in blood: "We paid the price, now that you have returned. So will you!" Drawn together by the horrific discovery, four freshmen-Jason, the reserved forestry major; Roman, a charismatic star athlete; June, Roman's sharp-witted sister; and Ashley, a fierce rodeo competitor-form a secret pact to uncover the truth . As they dig into the town's dark history, they realize their meeting wasn't a coincidence. Their surnames-Pine, Davis, Sterling, and Miller-match a 1908 census of families who built their empires on a brutal betrayal in the Alazan Bayou.