The male romantic lead in this book frequently expresses guilt over not being able to protect several characters from being raped by his fellow soldiers in the previous book. Prior to the events of the book, the female lead, then a teenager, tried to get the male lead, who is six years older than her, to have sex with her. He rejected her then. They do not actually have sex or enter a relationship together until they are both in their twenties. There is mention of an athletic director "who lingered a bit too close to the girls' locker room." The female lead mentions a classmate who flashed his genitals to her. Another classmate offered to drive the protagonist home when her car broke down and then tried to reach under her skirt while he was driving. When she rejected him, he claimed that she was just trying to play hard to get like Asian girls in the porn he watched. A college dorm mate forces a kiss on the female lead on two separate occasions. A male coworker ogles her and implies that she is a lesbian for rejecting his advances. A female coworker is mentioned to have bitten someone's hand who tried to touch her behind. The protagonist's female friend is drugged by an antagonist character, who told her he was just giving her tea. The protagonist saves her friend before anything bad happens. Both the protagonist and her friend get kidnapped toward the end and one of the kidnappers makes a veiled rape threat toward them.