"He wasn’t a killer and had no plans of becoming one. This wasn’t a stick-up operation like the bandits from the old American west. Nor was it a smash and grab as jewelry store heist had devolved into. In his mind, this was a take what you need kind of affair that would yield no casualties."

Present-day Charlotte, North Carolina; a thirty-something black man named Reggie Skinter who works as a carpet cleaner making $12/hr; living in a motel called Competitive Inn on the side of town where survival is a privilege. Desperate to escape his surroundings, he and his assistant at Fair Zone, Dustin, devise a plan to steal valuables from the homes they’re cleaning and pawn them for money.

Breanna Miles is a street-walker, who’s switched from serving her John’s to dominating Damon’s. Hoping to save enough money to leave the life, she comes to stay at Competitive and is inundated with all the troubles being impoverished can afford.

The Things We Need explores the conditions surrounding why an otherwise sane human being could make a choice that risk both his life and freedom.