Rereading The Rifter by Ginn Hale

My latest literary infatuation has been The Rifter series by Ginn Hale. I'm on my first reread right now. I tend to be a clueless reader, so rereading helps me clarify and understand a lot of things that I missed the first time around. In the case of this series, I was so excited about the plot that I read it REALLY FAST so I probably missed a lot.

Some questions that I'm trying to answer or explore as I go through my reread:
( Contains spoilers for The Rifter )