The apartment on Victoria Island was still unfamiliar when Amara woke up at five in the morning. Not in the way that new places feel strange it had been three months since Dayo’s team moved her in, three months of waking up to air conditioning which felt strange for the first month, to a kitchen with a fridge that stayed cold, to a bed that didn’t share a wall with three cousins. But familiarity wasn’t the same as belonging. The place was beautiful white walls, a balcony that looked out at palm trees, a bathroom she didn’t have to share. It was everything her mother’s flat in Yaba wasn’t. And that was exactly why, at 5:17 AM, Amara was already dressed and heading out the door.

She needed to remember.

The ride to Yaba took forty minutes through Lagos that was still half-asleep. The city moved differently at this hour slower, honest, before the heat and the hustle forced everyone into armor. Amara sat on the back of the okada with her helmet strap digging into her chin, watching the island fade behind her and the mainland rise ahead. She could have taken an Uber. Dayo provided a card for transportation, food, everything. But the okada felt closer to who she was a girl who had learned to hold on tight to moving things.

Her mother’s shop was on a corner that smelled like frying akara and yesterday’s rain. Mama Amara Provisions the sign hand-painted by her uncle, faded now, the ’o’ in Provisions half-peeled from humidity. Amara stood across the street and looked at it for a full minute before crossing. The shop was already open. Her mother was always open by five-thirty, restocking shelves she had organized in her sleep, counting inventory she knew by heart.

Amara walked in and the bell above the door announced her. Her mother looked up from behind the counter same apron, same reading glasses, same expression of mild irritation that dissolved immediately when she recognized her daughter.

"You should be sleeping," her mother said. "Your music drops today. You need energy."

"I needed to see you first."

Her mother set down the carton of Indomie she was unpacking and came around the counter. She hugged Amara hard, the way she always did quick, fierce, like affection was something that had to be administered efficiently before the next customer arrived.

"Did you eat?"

"On the island? Yes. They have everything there. Fridge. Stove. Even a microwave."

Her mother nodded, satisfied. "That man Dayo. He takes care of his people. I prayed for him last Sunday. I told God to bless him for blessing you."

"You prayed for Dayo?"

"I pray for anyone who makes sure my daughter has a roof that doesn’t leak." Her mother walked back behind the counter and resumed unpacking. "Now sit. Drink something. Then go back to your island and become famous."

Amara sat on the plastic stool her mother kept behind the counter the same stool she had sat on from age twelve, doing homework between customers, learning to count change faster than the boys who tried to short her. She looked around the shop. The shelves were neat but crowded. Products stacked to the ceiling. Every inch used because every inch cost money. This was where she had learned discipline. Where she had learned that speed wasn’t recklessness it was survival. Counting change fast enough to not get cheated. Restocking shelves between school and closing. Learning every price by heart because her mother couldn’t afford a calculator that worked.

"I wrote a song about this," Amara said quietly.

Her mother didn’t look up. "About what?"

"About being young. About people telling me I was too fast. Too loud. About proving that speed is a gift, not a problem." Amara sipped the Fanta her mother had opened for her. "Track four. It’s called *Young*. I wrote it myself."

Her mother stopped unpacking. She stood very still for a moment, her hands on a carton of milk. Then she turned around and looked at her daughter really looked at her the way she had looked at her when Amara was born, when the nurse said she was small but her lungs were strong.

"Play it for me," her mother said.

"I can’t. It’s not out yet. Midnight."

"Then sing it."

Amara laughed. "Here? In the shop?"

"Sing it, Amara. Or I’ll know you don’t believe your own words."

Amara stood up. She looked at the empty shop no customers yet, just the hum of the generator outside and the smell of soap powder and dried fish. She closed her eyes and sang the first verse of *Young*. A cappella. No beat. Just her voice in the same room where she had learned to count, to stack, to survive.

She sang about being told she was too much. Too fast. Too loud. About the shelves she stocked while dreaming of stages. About the boys who laughed when she said she would sing for the world. About the speed they called recklessness that was actually just life rushing through her because she had too much to do and not enough time to wait.

When she finished, her mother was crying. Not dramatically. Just tears sliding down her cheeks while she held a carton of milk against her chest like a shield.

"You wrote that?" her mother asked.

"I wrote it."

"Then you don’t need my prayers for talent." Her mother wiped her face with her apron. "You need my prayers for the world. Because they’re not ready for you."

Amara hugged her again. Longer this time. Then she walked out of the shop, crossed the street, and caught an okada back to the island. She didn’t look back. She just held on tight to the moving thing, the way she had always done.

Admiralty Way was alive when she arrived. The others were already there — Frosh in a corner scrolling through numbers, KZ bouncing his knee, Faye sipping tea with that calm she always had, Tunde reading a newspaper that had Amara’s face on page four. The producers were behind the board. Akin was adjusting levels with the focus of a surgeon.

"You went to Yaba," Faye said, reading her face.

"I went to remember."

"Did it help calm you down?"

"It reminded me that speed isn’t always recklessness." Amara sat down and stretched her legs. "It’s survival."

At 10 PM, Akin dimmed the lights. They sat in the circle tighter now than they had been two months ago, a family forged in releases and early mornings and the shared miracle of being heard. The five of them plus the producers, plus Zara who had come again because Faye’s sister was now part of this whether anyone invited her or not.

Akin hit play.

*Rush* hit first. Amara’s speed against Sarah’s precision, two female voices trading bars without tripping each other, racing to the finish line and arriving together. The room went still. KZ was nodding hard, his head moving to the tempo. Frosh was grinning actually grinning, the first time Amara had seen him look genuinely happy since her music started.

*Sability* played next. Swagger. Confidence. The sound of walking into a room and knowing you own it before you speak.

*Away* followed. Pure kinetic energy. The kind of song that made you want to move before your brain caught up.

Then *Young*.

The beat stripped down just drums and a bassline that pulsed like a heartbeat. Amara’s voice entered, and this time it wasn’t Dayo’s writing. It was hers. About the shop. About the counting. About the boys who laughed. About being told she was too much and deciding that too much was exactly enough.

The room changed. Kazeem nodded harder than before. Frosh’s grin faded into something deeper — recognition. Faye wiped her eyes. Tunde set his newspaper down. And Zara Zara was bouncing on her seat, mouthing the words she didn’t know yet but felt in her bones. she has become a studio rat since her sister Faye brought her she was almost always present during session.

*Rhythm & Blues* closed it out. Melodic speed. The kind of song that sounded like running through Lagos at night with your hair flying behind you.

When it ended, the room held its breath. Then KZ stood up and pointed at her. "That’s you. That’s exactly you. Too fast, too loud, too much. And perfect."

"Track four," Frosh said quietly. "Again."

Akin played *Young* again. This time, everyone sang along not the words, because they didn’t know them yet, but the feeling. The defiance. The speed. The youth.

At 11:45 PM, they posted. Amara’s fingers moved fast over her phone a habit from years of texting between customers as she shared the link with a caption: *PACE. Out now. Track four is mine. I wrote it when I was still counting change in my mother’s shop. Listen. Then move.*

Midnight hit. The EP went live.

The first hour was energetic but modest one hundred and forty thousand streams. Amara watched the counter and felt her old anxiety creeping in. No scandal to compete with. No drama to feed the algorithms. Just music. Just speed. Just her.

Then, around hour five, something shifted.

Akin called out. "Amara. Look."

The graph had spiked. Not gradually. Sharply. TikTok dance challenges were exploding — young Nigerians using *Sability* and *Away* as sound backgrounds, creating routines that matched her kinetic energy. The algorithm was feeding it. The 4th Global Spotlight Card had activated at 4 AM Lagos time, but nobody in the room knew this. Nobody saw the interface glow in a locked office in Los Angeles. They just saw the numbers multiply and didn’t understand why.

By hour eight, *Rush* was on three major Afrobeats playlists globally. By hour twelve, *Young* was trending on Twitter Nigeria — young women posting about being told they were too much and proving it wrong. By dawn, Amara’s stream count had cleared seven million.

She went home to her mother’s shop at noon the next day. The bell announced her. Her mother looked up from behind the counter and her face split open with a joy Amara had never seen directed at anything but prayer.

"They played you," her mother said, standing up. "On Cool FM. Three times since morning. Your voice. My customers were asking if that was really you." She walked around the counter and pulled Amara into a hug. "I told them yes. That’s my daughter. She sings too fast for this world. And the world is finally catching up."

Her phone rang. Blocked number.

Amara answered. "Hello?"

"Track four," Dayo said. Same voice. Same calm. Same weight. "That’s why they stayed. You wrote that. Not me. Remember that."

Amara screamed. Not a scream of fear. A scream of release, of vindication, of a girl from Yaba who had spent her life being told she was too fast and was now hearing from the most powerful man in music that her speed was exactly what the world needed.

"THANK YOU!" she shouted into the phone. "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU—"

Click. The line was dead.

Amara stood in the middle of the shop, phone in hand, breathing hard. Her mother stared at her. Frosh, who had recorded the entire exchange from the doorway, lowered his phone slowly. The others — KZ, Faye, Tunde — were all laughing, posting, sharing.

By the end of week one, *PACE* had cleared twenty-two million streams. Not Faye’s emotional twenty-four. Not Frosh’s explosive thirty-one. But different. Kinetic. A dance movement. A youth anthem. The kind of success that moved bodies instead of just hearts.

Amara stood on the balcony of her Victoria Island apartment at dawn, looking out at Lagos — the same city where she had once counted change fast enough to survive. She wasn’t counting anymore. She was just moving. Fast. Loud. Exactly as she was made to.

And for the first time in her life, the world was keeping pace.

(A/N: Shameless author asking for Golden Ticket 🎟 it doubles during this period so if I get up to ten one extra Chapter )