Shadyside was a town that felt older than it was.

The paint peeled too fast off the houses. The leaves changed too early. The streetlights always flickered like they were remembering something horrible. People whispered about the curse, but they never said it too loud. Not because they didn’t believe it — but because they did. It was the kind of place where tragedy passed down through families like bad jewelry, and where the Rogers name had been written in the town’s blood for centuries.

Megan Rogers knew that better than anyone.

She had grown up in the old Victorian house on Clover Lane — the one everyone crossed the street to avoid. It wasn’t because of anything obvious. The grass was mowed. The windows were clean. Her grandfather was polite at the grocery store. But the house had a coldness that felt alive. And the Rogers family? They were always just a little too pale. Too quiet. Too still.

Megan was the youngest. The only one still in school. The last in a bloodline that wasn’t just ancient — it was hungry.

She’d known since she was ten what she was. Her mother had explained it between sips of wine, like she was talking about weather or taxes. You’re a Rogers, Megan. And Rogers don’t die like other people. Rogers take what they need.

But Megan didn’t want to take. Not yet. Not like that.

She went through the motions of high school like someone walking through a dream she didn’t want to wake up from. She sat in the back row. She never ate lunch. She stared too long at people's necks and fingers and the pink of their mouths when they yawned. She smiled at the right times, laughed at the wrong ones. No one asked questions.

Until she came along.