The protagonist kisses his love interest without asking first and feels guilty and apologizes after the fact. There are non-specific references to the attempted rape that took place in the previous book. A side character mentions that a group of soldiers cornered her daughter, but does not go into detail. A professor and a group of soldiers have taken over a college campus and have forced the few international students still living there to work. It is revealed that the soldiers routinely rape these students as a "perk" of their position. The few soldiers who disagree with what is going on don't stop the others who are perpetrating this act. Part of the reason seems to be that they tried to stop them but were not able to do so, but part of it is that they do not want to go against a fellow cadet. The professor, who was a mentor to one of the romantic leads, appears to have been grooming him. The professor kisses him at one point, but the romantic lead was uninterested.