Plot

A brilliant high school senior days away from escaping to Yale must outwit her malevolent new English teacher when he becomes obsessed with her. As he reveals his sinister past, Clara fights a treacherous battle of wits for survival.

Brilliant but isolated high school senior Clara Simmons has one desperate goal: escape her abusive foster home through a conditional Yale scholarship. When her beloved English teacher dies by suicide, Clara's academic future hangs precariously in the balance. Enter Mr. Heller, a charismatic replacement teacher who immediately recognizes Clara's exceptional talent and offers her salvation through a coveted teacher's assistant position that could secure her scholarship.

Initially grateful for Heller's mentorship and personal attention, Clara begins to sense something deeply sinister beneath his charming, intellectual facade. Her growing suspicions intensify when the school's guidance counselor mysteriously vanishes, and Clara discovers disturbing connections between Heller and a string of missing students from his previous teaching positions. As she digs deeper into his past, Clara uncovers a horrifying truth: Heller is a methodical serial killer who specifically targets promising young women, using his position of educational authority to hunt, manipulate, and eliminate his victims.

Now trapped in a deadly psychological chess game with a predator who has already murdered anyone who might expose him, Clara must navigate Heller's increasingly dangerous obsession while desperately trying to protect herself and her fellow students. With nowhere to turn and no adult to trust, she realizes that her survival depends entirely on understanding the twisted psychology of her tormentor and turning his own manipulative methods against him. In a final, brutal confrontation where academic brilliance becomes a life-or-death weapon and classroom trust turns absolutely lethal, Clara must prove that while some lessons are worth dying for, others are worth killing for.